First Infection
by whateverdudezb
Summary: Many have liken the Citadel to a massive hand: snatching various races from their homes, and clutching them together in its palm, where they learn to live peacefully, side-by-side. But now that hand is reaching for a race that will only make it recoil in disgust.
1. Chapter 1

Left 4 Dead is owned by Valve.

Mass Effect is owned by Bioware.

First Infection

"_In space, no one can hear you scream. That's a popular saying among your people, right? Well, when your kind first stepped on the Citadel, there were screams that were heard across the galaxy by billions of people. Quite an accomplishment, even the krogans haven't been able to pull that off."_ ~ Aria T'Loak

The Citadel, a massive space station that's more akin to a city, resides in the Serpent Nebula. Similar in shape to a pentagram, it has an inner ring seven kilometers in diameter, with five arms protruding from it, all of them forty-three kilometers long. The inner ring, also known as the Presidium, contains the offices of the various branches of the galactic government, along with the embassies of the various races that make up this government. The five arms are the Wards, these are the residential and commercial areas of the Citadel.

Many, who consider themselves to have a poetic tongue, have liken the Citadel to a massive hand: snatching various races from their homes, and clutching them together in its palm, where they learn to live peacefully, side-by-side.

But, in the Citadel Tower, located in the center of the Presidium, there were three individuals who were discussing the requirements and merits of grabbing another race to the Citadel's collection.

**Citadel Tower, Council's Private Discussion Chamber, Council Era 2157**

The Council's Private Discussion Chamber is located near the main chamber, where the Council convenes. It is in the Private Discussion Chamber that the three Councilors meet to discuss matters of galactic importance, and to prepare for hearings in the Council Chambers. Some movies that have used this setting have shown it to be an eerie dark room, where the Councilors surround a glowing hologram of the movie's subject.

These movies usually got bad ratings.

In actuality, the room was very well-lit and is more similar to an office company's board meeting, although a tad bit more leisurely and hi-tech. For example, placed around the room are various plants and flowers from each of the Councilor's home planet. One of the walls was also covered by a holographic screen, which on the default setting has it cover the entire wall, but if a Councilor desires it so, it can also be separated into a dozen screens. In the center of this room was a large circular table, with three computers attached to it and a holographic projector in the middle of it. Separated equally apart around the diameter of the table are three chairs. These three chairs are made of the finest materials and fabrics in the galaxy, so as to provide comfort and support to those who have to make the largest decisions.

No one was sitting in the chairs.

Tevos, the asari Councilor that represented the Asari Republics, leaned forward on the table, next to her chair, and stared at a holographic display of a sports stadium. After a moment she glances at her colleagues. Lavern, the salarian Councilor, was staring at a wall composed of a dozen vids, each showing a different news program, each discussing about an upcoming event at a sports stadium. Tusparas, the turian councilor, was standing near a window with a view of space, concentrating deeply on the data streaming from his Omni-tool.

Tevos took a deep sigh.

"This is barbaric," she said, her voice cool and neutral.

No visible reaction from Lavern, but Tusparas looked her way. His pale, white-plated skin accentuates his old age, he'll be retiring soon, Tevos was sure.

"This was the agreement that was made," he replied, his voice just as neutral as hers, "besides, we've had to sign execution orders in the past."

"But a _public _execution?" she said, slightly more agitated, "My people stopped doing that before we even left Thessia."

"Well," Tusparas started as he walks to stand by his chair, his tone slightly sarcastic, "if the thought troubles you so much, the asari and salarians could, instead, support the Turian Hierarchy in waging war against this species."

"No," snapped Lavern, as he too walked over to stand by his chair, his light brown hued skin showing his young age.

"The Salarian Union will not be involved in a war with a species that we know nothing about. We didn't have a choice with the rachni, but this time we have a chance to avoid war," he gestured toward the holographic stadium, "and this public execution is a perfect way around that war."

"No matter how grisly," Tevos muttered, before turning toward Tusparas, "I would think that you would be the most dissatisfied about this, after all it is a turian general that they are executing."

"You expect me to cry over losing a criminal?" he activated his Omni-tool and sent the data he was reading to Tevos and Lavern.

"Desolas Arterius," Lavern read from his own Omni-tool.

"The one that gave the order to attack this new race," Tevos said, her eye's never leaving the information in front of her.

"And the one that lied to his troops about their deployment operations, dumped them on a planet to fight a conflict he made, and abandoned them at the first sign of trouble," Tusparas strained to keep his voice neutral, "He is also under suspicion of illegal activities, as his ship's databanks were wiped clean when we found him, not to mention the complete absence of the ship's crew."

"Which is, of course, one of the reasons why we know nothing about this new species," Lavern added.

"Honestly," said Tusparas, "after reading this investigation report, I'm glad they demanded a public execution. It will be a good cautionary tale for young turians to learn."

"It says here, that all attempts to gain information from Desolas has resulted in failure," Lavern said, "even asari C-Sec operatives who have mind-melded with him have not been able to gleam anything."

"That, is called turian discipline," the turian Councilor replied with a hint of pride, "the asari would have a tough time punching through that."

"Maybe not…"

The turian Councilor and the salarian Councilor both turned to see Tevos no longer looking at the data, but instead pushing commands on her Omni-tool.

"I assume that you have an idea," Tusparas said.

"If the asari operatives cannot get through that turian's mental barriers," Tevos replied, as she looked up from her Omni-tool with the edges of her mouth slightly curving upwards, "then perhaps I should call an old friend who can."

**Ward level, Kowla stadium**

She is called by many names, by a great number of people. Names like Great-Beauty and the Stunning Flower come to her mind. Some even call her lover, but a few (more than she would like to admit) have taken upon themselves to call her a whore. All of these people though, would never be able to guess at another name that she used to go by. A name that was only spoken by a very few high-ranking government officials and commando agents, a name that she took great pains to never hear in common occurrence again: the Scalpel.

Personally, she just likes to be called the Consort now.

Sha'ira looked about the stadium that she's standing in the middle of and lists off the reasons why this particular stadium was chosen for the diplomatic meeting between the Citadel Council and this new race. Mostly it's because it fit three out of four of the very specific requirements that the new race demanded.

First, the stadium is large enough for a very small cargo ship to land in.

Second, the owner of Kowla stadium is one of the few who didn't mind having his stadium used for a public execution. Of course, that's not surprising considering the fact that the owner is a Krogan and the stadium is used for the Krogan sport: kowla (Sha'ira pondered why the owner uncreatively named the stadium after the sport, but she had heard rumors that the stadium had gone through several name changes because residents had complained about the Krogan's choice for less than savory titles, until finally settling on the current name).

Third, the stadium is very well sealed. Two steal doors that the teams use to enter can be closed very tightly. Concrete walls that measure a height of four feet and metal fences on top of those walls to stop from anything from getting to the audience. Sha'ira does not know what the kowla sport entails, but considering the fact that the stadium had to be cleaned for hours to get rid of the bloodstains and at the end of the day there were still some remaining (they had to spray-paint over those), she was glad for it.

The fourth requirement was not originally apart of the stadium, but had to be built after the stadium was leased from the owner. And as Sha'ira stared at it, she conferred to herself that it was the oddest requirement out of all of them. In front of Sha'ira was a suspended platform that was suspended six meters above the floor by metal support beams. At the top of the platform were railings for which to lean on.

For a public execution, this species had an unusual way of going about it. But these requirements were not too demanding, so the Council conceded to the terms.

Sha'ira turns to the creaking sound of a door opening to see seven turians marching toward her. The one in the middle is handcuffed, while the other six, the guards most likely, are circled around him carrying assault weapons. When they reached her, she noticed that they wore helmets and were completely covered in blue armor. One of the guards stepped forward and saluted her.

"Prisoner Desolas Arterius as requested, ma'am," the guard said orderly.

Sha'ira nodded and turned to look at the ex-general to see him staring at her. For a brief moment they held each other's gaze, until Desolas looked down, away from her gaze, in fear.

"_A common response to my methods,"_ she thought to herself.

Yesterday, she was messaged by her old friend, Tevos, to crack the mind of a stubborn turian. Initially, she had refused the request, replying that that part of her life had ended, but Tevos had stated that the information was important and explained the situation to her. The deaths of thousands of turians and who knows how many aliens, a fleet supposedly decimated, one suspicious survivor, a new species that only the survivor knows about, and the threat of war that looms over the entire predicament. How could she say no to the request?

So, Sha'ira had found herself in an interrogation room, somewhere in C-Sec Headquarters, with the turian general. Five hours later, she called off the interrogation as a success, but only partially. She was able to gleam some information about the new species before the turian was able to resist her methods, but it was not as much as the Council had hoped. She was only able to learn of a few words that the turian's mind associated with the species.

Horde

Deformed

Plague

These words were practically meaningless and unhelpful to the situation as Desolas's opinion of the species could have warped the meaning of the words. But, all was not lost, as Sha'ira was able to recover a flicker of a memory from his mind. The memory started with Desolas in his ship's communication center, and ended with one of the crew's communicators saying that their troops were getting slaughtered in close-quarters.

When the Council was relayed this information, they were not entirely thrilled with the news. Besides, the small amount of information that was gained, they were quite disconcerted that turians, a well-disciplined race with plated skin and claws, were being defeated at combat. Needless to say, everyone was hoping that they didn't stumble upon a race similar to the krogans or rachni.

Now, she stands in the middle of the stadium to wait for the new race that will be arriving at the Citadel in just a few hours. She had volunteered herself to be the one to formally greet the race on behalf of the Citadel government. The Council allowed this, hoping that her calming presence and skill with words will prevent any misfortune befalling the delegations.

"Looks like the audience has started to arrive," one of the turian guards stated.

Sha'ira looked up to see people filing into the rows of seats that lined the stadium. Individuals of various races dressed into fine clothes that represent their position. These people were privileged politicians and delegates of powerful businessmen; all know how to be on their best behavior to prevent any incident, yet none are high-ranking enough to be considered indispensable if an incident does occur.

Suddenly, a floating camera shimmied its way into view in front of her. Keeping her composure, she gives the camera a small smile and a nod before it floats back to its owner, where other people with cameras are standing at.

Ah, yes, and journalists, can't forget the journalists.

_'If the audience is here,_' thought Sha'ira, as she looked up toward space, toward the edge of the Citadel and beyond, _'then the visiting team should be arriving soon.'_

**Serpent Nebula**

Mass relays were truly marvels of the galaxy.

Similar in appearance to tuning forks, these giant constructs kilometers long are essential to the establishment of galactic society. Acting as galactic highways, the mass relays allow spaceships to travel instantaneously from one end of the galaxy to another.

Near the base of the relay was a massive, blue-glowing core that was surrounded by a set of revolving, gyroscopic rings.

And the rings started to spin faster…

And faster…

And faster…

Until finally with a flash of blue light a large object appeared and the rings slowed down to their usual speed.

The object that had appeared though, increased its speed and headed toward the Citadel.

**On board the Destiny Ascension, flagship of the Citadel Fleet**

"Matriarch Lidanya."

The commander of the Destiny Ascension looked up from her reports to see one of her navigators standing at attention. She set down the holo-tablet on her desk and gestured for the navigator to speak.

"They are here, ma'am," said the navigator stoutly, "The new species have arrived in their ship."

Lidanya took a deep sigh and stood up from her desk.

"Alright, relay them the coordinates of the stadium and I will send a message to the Council and our ambassador of their arrival."

"Yes, ma'am," replied the navigator.

"Dismissed."

As the navigator left her quarters, Lidanya pressed a few keys on her computer console and an image of the aliens' ship appeared on-screen. The computer classified the ship as a cruiser, so its size was comparable to that of the turian ships that made up the Citadel Fleet. Though it lacked the bird-like structure the turian ships have, it instead had a forward three-pronged design.

As Lidanya looked at the starship, she realized that she was probably one of the very first to see the new species' ship. Even the peace delegates that were sent after the incident couldn't get close enough, because of Desolas.

It started about two standard weeks ago when the salarian's Special Task Group discovered that one of the listed mass relays was activated and had been active for nearly half a galactic month. This was cause for alarm as documented mass relays were monitored heavily and the Citadel should have been informed immediately. Fearing the possible implications, a small military fleet was formed to use the mass relay and search the neighboring systems that it led to for any potential threats. But before the fleet was about to begin its journey, the mass relay powered up to reveal a single and badly damaged turian cruiser.

Boarding teams discovered that the entire crew was missing and that the ship's databanks had been entirely erased. When they discovered General Desolas, he was in the bridge, pointing a pistol at his head. A team spent nearly an hour trying to convince Desolas to put down the pistol, without getting a response from him, before one team member just grabbed the pistol out of his grip.

Apparently, Desolas could not shoot himself.

By a stroke of luck, one of the teams had discovered a hidden camera in one of the sparring rooms. It was a soldier's personal camera and it still had footage, unlike the cruiser's security recordings that were all deleted. According to the footage, a turian soldier had suspicions that a couple of his teammates were disabling the security cameras to have sex on the sparring pad (they were).

When the team looked through the footage they found that most of the crew had died of asphyxiation when oxygen was sucked out of the ship into space. The rest of the crew that survived by wearing suits filled with oxygen were told over the intercom by Desolas to stay where they were. He then went to every room and gunned down any survivors.

Forensics teams later discovered that Desolas jettisoned the bodies.

While the rest of the fleet was investigating Desolas's cruiser, a small salarian scout ship went through the mass relay and then traveled to the nearest star system to investigate turian distress signals.

Half-way through the journey the distress signals ceased broadcasting.

When the scout ship reached the outer edge of the star system, their long-range scanners revealed a planet with turian ship debris in its orbit along with unknown alien ships. The scout ship immediately left for the mass relay to inform the Council that Desolas had invaded an alien planet. The Council then recalled the small fleet from exploring the space beyond the mass relay, as the aliens might see it as an act of aggression, and sent out a single asari ship to broker a peace agreement with the aliens.

However, when the asari ship was noticed on the aliens' radar scans, the aliens signaled the unidentified ship to precede no further or they will be fired upon. The asari ship complied, breaking velocity before they could get into visual range of the alien's ship. That was when the peace delegates on the asari ship started conversing with the aliens who communicated by using the turian language that they had recently procured.

Unfortunately, the aliens said that they were not open to peace talks until Desolas was in their hands, paying for his crimes. The delegates responded by saying that they could not do that because Desolas, traitorous or not, was a general and had too much knowledge of classified information to be handed over to foreign hands. Eventually, the debate was satisfied on both sides with the Council delegates keeping Desolas and his secrets in Citadel territory, and getting the aliens to eventually open up for peace talks, while the aliens got to kill Desolas on their own terms.

Lidanya activated her Omni-tool to inform the Council of the aliens' arrival.

**Kowla stadium**

The audience was quiet. An hour ago they were talking nonstop, discussing politics, business, and rumors. Now, there was nary a peep coming from them as they waited with baited breath. Everyone's head was pointed skyward, their eyes centered on the object of their silence.

A small starship slowly descending toward the open stadium.

As the ship got closer Sha'ira couldn't help but notice the unusually simple design of it. The ship has a rectangular cubic body, with a cockpit located on the top-front portion, and a set of wings placed on the sides. It honestly looked like a flying brick with wings.

"_Do not underestimate them, Sha'ira. Remember, they decimated an entire turian fleet,"_ she thought.

The ship's engine's dulled noiselessly as it landed.

"_This is it, we finally get to see the mysterious new species that bested the turians,"_

At the front of the ship, large cargo-bay doors started to open and a ramp extended toward the ground.

Sha'ira stood straighter.

As the doors opened wide it was revealed that the interior of the ship was strangely obscured in darkness.

The audience shifted anxiously in their seats.

Footsteps were heard within the ship, until finally a lone silhouette was revealed in the open.

"_By the Goddess,"_ thought Sha'ira.

The individual was similar in body structure of that of a batarian in that they both have similar legs, arms, and a torso, but that was where the similarities ended. The being's body had a number of differences, and as it walked toward her they only became more apparent.

The most striking feature of its body were the various tentacles. Though most seemed to be located on its back, they protruded from its body at the most random of places with no sense of symmetry. Another striking feature was the smoke. For some unknown reason, a green cloud of smoke seemed to follow it as it walked toward her.

It stopped just a few feet from her and she took a closer note of its appearance. It had a small patch of fur on top of its head. Its face was actually more similar to an asari's than a batarian's, although a bit more rugged in appearance, plus it had these tumor-like bumps on its face. She also noticed that it was about half-a-head taller than her. Taking an unnoticeable whiff she discovered that the alien smelled like burnt wood. And the eyes were completely white.

"_Alright Sha'ira enough analyzing, time to do your part,"_ Sha'ira took a short bow toward the alien.

"I am Sha'ira and on behalf of the Council, I welcome you to the Citadel."

For a moment the alien didn't do anything but stare at her.

Then it gave her a short bow too.

"Greetings, my name is Joseph Alan and I am grateful to be welcomed here," the alien's voice was rough, and she suspected that it was male.

Sha'ira smiled, the situation was hopeful.

"And I must say: if the aliens that invaded our planet were as half as beautiful as you, we would have been much more welcoming to our alien overlords," he said with a smile.

A joke.

She couldn't help it, she laughed and the tension that was plaguing everyone lifted.

"Yes, well, the turians are beautiful in their own way, as I am sure that your species has a beauty all its own," she managed through chuckles.

"Mmm, maybe, but let's not forget why we are here," he said as he gestured with his hand toward Desolas, still cuffed and guarded.

"_Right, the execution. I had almost forgotten about it,"_ she thought.

"Once we're done with this nasty sort of retribution, I can call out my people's ambassador from my ship and we can start up the negotiations," he continued.

"Yes, the agreement did state that the execution is to go before any negotiations. Your leaders were very concise about the order," she said.

He nodded.

"Are you his executioner then?" she gestured toward Desolas.

He paused at that statement before he replied.

"…You could say that. But I'm really just the one that will be …well, metaphorically speaking: holding him down," he shrugged, "speaking of which, you and those guards should probably leave to a safer area while I start the execution."

Before Sha'ira could say anything, Joseph turned and waved a 'come hither' motion at his ship.

Out of the ship came three more individuals, but they were very different from Joseph.

Like Joseph they had a similar body structure, but they lacked the tentacles and green smoke. One was large, but not the muscular kind of large, the bloated kind of large. Wearing a large black formal robe, the clothing covered much of its, presumably male, body, but its hands and face were visible. His face was large and, like Joseph, had a few warts around it. His hands, unlike Joseph, ended a bit sharper. The other two individuals were similar to each other. They were both wearing hooded clothing that kept the uppermost portion of their faces hidden, both were carrying weapons in their hands (shotguns, Sha'ira noted), and both of their hands were tipped with very sharp, curved claws. Sha'ira did note a distinct difference between the two. The one on the left had a body more similar to that of an asari's: wider hips, a thinner waist, and a protruding chest which she could only guess were the breasts. If common sexual dimorphism were anything to go by, then this individual would be the female of the species, which means that Sha'ira correctly guessed that the others were males.

"_Well, that is good,"_ Sha'ira thought, _"but why is it that they do not have the tentacles or the smoke like Joseph does? And why is the other one so large? Are they different species?"_

If Desolas attacked a multi-species government, then the Citadel is in a tougher situation than the one the Council had thought it was in. It would no longer be about if this upstart race can peacefully join the Citadel government, but instead if the two governments can coexist.

"Sha'ira," said Joseph, breaking her out of her reverie as she focused on him, "would you please leave with your guards toward a safer area. The execution is about to start and it can get pretty dangerous for those not involved." With that said he walked past her and went straight for the suspended platform. And to the amazement of Sha'ira, he climbed up the platform so fast and so flawlessly, that he reached its height in less than five seconds.

Sha'ira turned toward the turian guards, and focused on the leader. "Sergeant, I believe it is time we left Desolas to his fate."

The sergeant nodded and with a wave of his claw, he and his team left Desolas and opened a gate that led to the audience. Sha'ira joined them and closed the gate behind her. With the guards gone, Desolas was now being guarded by the hooded aliens, each pointing their shotgun at him.

Sha'ira found herself sitting next to the journalists and informed them that the execution was about to start and that it was okay to send out their camera drones. She then used her Omni-tool to activate the various holo-screens that dotted around the stadium. Each screen showed a different point of interest.

It was the screen that focused on Joseph that shocked her the most.

The screen showed him with his hands on the railing and his jaw hanging open. Then a tongue-like appendage slowly slithered out of his mouth, until the tip was just hanging above his waist.

He leaned over the railing, his white eyes staring directly at Desolas.

Then the appendage shot out with a burst of speed, flying across meters of ground until it reached Desolas, where it then wrapped around him. With a cry of shock, Desolas fell on his back and was pulled back toward the suspend platform by Joseph, where he was then lifted a foot off the ground.

The journalist next to Sha'ira gasped in shock.

The large, bloated alien had his hand at his ear and seemed to be talking to someone. When he lowered his hand a loud clanging noise, not too dissimilar to the sound of metal cell doors sliding open, came from the inside of the ship. The large alien then walked to Desolas.

With the appendage wrapped securely around Desolas, he could, at best, only flail his legs around helplessly.

But Desolas didn't do that.

Instead he just kept giving the alien a fierce stare.

"Desolas Arterius," the alien said, voice low and guttural, "you have committed multiple war crimes, killed thousands of my people, and participated in treasonous activities against your own kind."

Desolas didn't say anything.

In the corner of her eye, Sha'ira noticed movement. She looked over toward the alien's ship and saw another alien standing on the ship's ramp. It was similar in appearance to the hooded aliens, except without the hood. Its movements were jagged and it had a glazed look over its face.

"Not only that," the alien continued, "but you abandoned your soldiers when they needed you the most. You left them to die fighting a pointless battle. For my people, that is one of the highest betrayals a person can commit."

Another alien stumbled out of the ship.

"My people have a saying: 'an eye for an eye.' You left your soldiers to face the horrors of my people's warfare, and such it is that you too will face the same horror."

Another alien and another.

"Your sentence: …is death by the Horde,"

Horde

Sha'ira tore her eyes away from the new aliens and centered them on Desolas at the mention of the word; the word that Desolas directly associates with the aliens.

The large alien stared at Desolas, "Do you have any last words?"

Desolas stared.

The alien stared back.

A camera drone shined its light on Desolas, focusing on his face.

Then Desolas spoke.

"You are all going to die."

For a moment the entire stadium was silent, no one making a sound at Desolas's words.

Then the large alien puked on him.

Desolas cried out in disgust as large quantities of greenish muck was sprayed all over him. Sha'ira held up her hand to her mouth in revulsion as the members of the audience made various noises that voiced their disgust.

They were all silenced by the screams.

They were loud screams. Nothing like the ones that an animal would make; no, an animal's scream would still have some kind of intelligence in it, some identity. These screams didn't have any of that; there was nothing behind those screams but pure rage.

Sha'ira turned toward the ship to find that it was the previously shambling aliens that were making that wretched cry of horror. Their faces no longer holding a glazed look, but one of fury. They turned and ran toward Desolas.

And so did the ones in the ship.

Like an ocean of flesh and bodies, they gushed out of the ship by the numbers. Dozens upon dozens of crazed aliens ran toward Desolas with complete ferocity.

They ran past the hooded duo who barely flinched as they passed.

They ran past the large one who stood back to watch.

They then reached the one with a fierce look on his face.

The audience and, by extension through the cameras, the rest of the galaxy sat and watched the horror.

They beat him, they scratched him, they took bites out of him, and they did everything they could to rip him to shreds. Some grabbed on to his legs and simply pulled. Joseph lengthened his appendage out of his mouth to give them more room.

Throughout all of this, Desolas screamed, but not out of fear or pain, but of rage.

Sha'ira found herself leaning forward against the chain-link fences, and as she looked around she found that she was not the only one, but her eyes did not stray away from the horrible spectacle for long as she soon found herself focused solely on the event before her.

Until her vision was obscured by mania filled eyes.

She, and many others near her, took a frightened step back as they saw one of the crazed creatures clinging to the fence in front of her. It was a female of her kind and she was wearing some kind of Kevlar vest and pants, but other than that she wore nothing. As she continued to thrash against the fence she started to climb up it. One of the turian guards started to pull out a pistol until one of the hooded individuals jumped up.

The hooded female leaped meters high to land up on the fence next to the crazed one. With her claws she grabbed the frantic one by the back of the vest and threw her toward the large alien who herded her toward the large group.

On the fence, the hooded girl looked back down at Sha'ira, who had a much better view of the hooded girl's face from that angle. Soft features like an asari's face, the patch of fur on top of her head long enough to reach the bottom of her neck, and the blackest eyes. Eyes so entirely black, like that of an asari's during a mind meld.

"Sorry about that," her voice the lightest out of all heard. After that is said, she jumps back down to join the rest.

After a while, Desolas's screams quieted, the crazed one's abuses slowed, and Joseph bit off the appendage letting it fall to the floor.

The large alien, with the help of the two hooded aliens, herded the crazed aliens, who were now strangely docile, into the ship, while Joseph jumped down the six meter suspended platform to check on Desolas's body, but stops when he sees what's left.

As the alien horde was herded into the ship, one final lone figure appeared on the ramp. Shrouded in a white translucent robe with the arm sleeves long enough to reach past the knees, the figure sashayed through the slow moving horde until it reached Joseph. They conversed for a while until Joseph extended his arm and pointed toward Sha'ira, where in then the figure started walking toward her.

The figure was another alien female, and Sha'ira noted that the robe's neckline extended down enough in a V shape to show ample cleavage. But what really drew her attention were the yellow eyes that glowed.

When the robed alien reached her, she gave a deep bow and with a formal tone said, "Greetings, my name is Anita Goyle. I am the ambassadorial representative of humanity."

"_Finally, a name for this species,"_ thought Sha'ira with relief, _"I can only hope that the delegations will be much easier than the execution."_

Anita put her hand on the fence, the sleeve falling down her arm to reveal the twelve-inch-long claws.

Author's note

Hoo, boy. That was gruesome.

Alright, so, a few things first:

One: the names of the turian councilor and salarian councilor are actually the names of the turian councilor and salarian councilor in the game, except that a few letters are jumbled about. The Mass Effect wiki didn't provide any info on previous councilors, so I just did my own thing.

Second: on the subject of how often I will update, I have this to say: on a bad day I can write maybe a 100 words, on a good day I can write from 600 to 1000 words in a day. But I will be writing constantly every day. The only problem is that when I have to eventually go back to college again, I'll probably have more 'bad' days.

Third: This is my first attempt at writing fanfiction, but this is not my first attempt at writing.

Fourth: Why Left 4 Dead and Mass Effect? Well… why not?

Fifth: For those who noticed that I didn't put any timeline in this chapter, you're probably wondering how an infected humanity recovered enough from a post-apocalyptic setting to achieve spaceflight in less than two centuries, even though clearly that they should be focusing on the reconstruction of their society, reorganization of collapsed governments, and generally restoring order from the chaos brought upon by a disease that makes the Bubonic Plague look like a cold. Well that's the mystery now, isn't it?

Sixth: please leave a review of what you think.

Seventh: anyone find puking hilarious?

Omake

"You are all going to die."

For a moment the entire stadium was silent, no one making a sound at Desolas's words.

Then the large alien puked on him.

Desolas cried out in disgust as large quantities of greenish muck was sprayed all over him. Sha'ira held up her hand to her mouth in revulsion as the members of the audience made various noises that voiced their disgust

Then Desolas threw up.

"Oh, Goddess!" Sha'ira yelled as she bent over and emptied her own stomach. She was then followed by the journalist next to her and various members of the audience.

**Council's Private Discussion Chamber**

In the chamber, the Council members saw the entire spectacle on their giant holo-screen.

Tevos had ran to the Council's Private Discussion Lavatory as fast as she could.

Lavern had his head in one of the potted plants.

Tusparas was simply bent over his chair.

"By the Spirits, we should have just handed them Desolas," Tusparas groaned out.

**A Random Bar somewhere on the Citadel**

Wrex was just sitting in a bar catching up with an old krogan friend, who now apparently owns some kind of stadium. As they watched the holo-vid, people around the room started vomiting.

"Ugh, cleaning that up is gonna be a kick in the quad," his friend said morosely.

Wrex didn't say anything, he just silently drank his alcohol to make the vomit he skillfully kept in his mouth go down easier.

**The Migrant Fleet**

Although the quarians are not a part of the Citadel anymore, they still kept tabs on large activities that happen in the galaxy. And an introduction of a new race is definitely something to watch. They are now regretting this decision.

"Oh Keelah, it's stuck in my helmet!"

**Geth space**

Geth platform A12256 observed Geth platform C22314 in as close as they can get to confusion.

Geth platform C22314 was tasked with observing the Citadel Council races by watching the Citadel News channel.

Geth platform C22314 was lying on the ground having a system overload.

Geth platform A12256 tuned into that channel.

Geth platform B49332 looked at Geth platform C22314 and Geth platform A12256 lying on the floor.

**STG Base**

Everywhere, salarian scientists and agents were leaning on the walls and lying over toilets, emptying their stomachs.

Except for one young scientist who kept staring at the screen with a finger under his chin.

"Fascinating," said Mordin.


	2. Chapter 2

Left 4 Dead is owned by Valve.

Mass Effect is owned by Bioware.

First Infection

"Your city is beautiful."

Anita Goyle, ambassadorial representative of humanity, looked out the window of the limo as it flew over the cityscape of the Citadel. Her hands tucked safely between her legs as she watched buildings pass by on the way to the Citadel Tower. Sitting on both of her sides were her body guards, the same two hooded individuals that were at the stadium, their arm's crossed and their shotguns strapped to their backs.

Sitting across from her was Sha'ira with two turian guards by her sides. After the execution was finished and Anita introduced herself, Sha'ira escorted her, with her hooded bodyguards following, out of the stadium to a waiting limo. Meanwhile Joseph and his large companion went into their ship and returned to their cruiser.

Sha'ira was surprised to learn that Anita, Joseph, and the rest of the aliens were the same species. How these humans came to have such radically different kinds of bodies was a mystery to her, one that she hoped she would soon be enlightened upon. Legs crossed, Sha'ira gave Anita a small smile.

"Yes, thank you, the Citadel is quite breathtaking," Sha'ira replied genuinely.

"Especially if you take into account the size alone," Anita remarked, "it must have taken many years to build."

"We presume so," Sha'ira said, "but we did not actually build it. My people, the asari, discovered the Citadel nearly three thousand years ago. We believe that it was built by an ancient race called the-"

"Protheans," Anita interjected.

Sha'ira paused, her lips slightly parted open for an already said word, "That is correct. I imagine that your people have already encountered some of their lost relics."

"On a planet nearby our home world," she answered. She then raised one of her arms and pointed out the window, her dangerously sharp claws in clear view.

A turian guard's trigger hand twitched.

"Is this the Citadel Tower?" Anita asked. Sha'ira looked out the window to see that they were at the base of the Citadel Tower, located in the presidium. The simulated sunny skies located at the top of the presidium, shined brightly down on the white government buildings that dotted the ring.

Sha'ira turned back to Anita, "Yes, we are here, if you would please follow me."

As they exited the limo, Sha'ira noted that the two hooded body guards both reflexively pulled down their hoods over their faces more, as if the brighter light in the presidium was irritating to them.

"This elevator will take us to the top of the tower, where the Council is waiting for you," Sha'ira said, as she walked into said elevator with Anita following behind, her white robe shining even more brightly in the presidium. Their guards stood in the elevator with them. With everyone in the elevator, Sha'ira tapped a button on the elevator panel and the elevator began its rise up the tower.

After a 'short' time of awkwardness, the elevator reached its destination and the occupants exited its confines to find themselves in the Council's Chambers. A great hall filled with beautiful flowing fountains and sets of stairs leading to the Council's Audience Chambers. It took some time walking up the stairs for the group to reach the Audience Chambers, but they eventually reached it.

Before the group climbed the final set of stair, Sha'ira stopped and turned to face Anita.

"Just above these stairs are the members of the Citadel Council, are you ready?" Sha'ira asked.

Anita nodded.

"Then please proceed further, as the meeting will start in ten minutes," Sha'ira took a step back away from the stairs and gestured forward for Anita to go on ahead.

"You will not be joining us, Sha'ira?" Anita questioned.

Sha'ira shook her head, "No, I have no purpose in this meeting, so I will be watching from on the terraces."

Anita accepted this answer and climbed up the stairs, her bodyguards trailing behind. Sha'ira watched her go.

"Do you think the negotiations will go well?" one of her turian guards asked, truly curious.

"…Yes, I believe both sides want to wash their hands of Desolas's crimes," she replied truthfully.

"What about after the negotiations?" the other turian asked, "Do you think these humans will join the Citadel?"

Sha'ira didn't say anything. After a moment of silence, she turned and walked to find a place to watch the event.

The turian guards exchanged quick glances, then followed behind her.

**Council's Audience Chambers**

"Hey, did you *tsss* see the execution?"

Sha'ira, leaning on the railing above the Council's Audience Chambers, looked over to her left to see two politicians, a volus and a salarian, in conversation.

"Desolas's execution? Yeah, I saw. It was …gruesome," the salarian answered.

"You can *tsss* say that again," replied the volus.

"Excuse me, but I was unable to watch it," an asari questioned, joining the conversation, "What did the aliens do?"

"They puked on him, that's what they did," the salarian stated seriously.

"What?" the asari looked utterly baffled.

"Yup, then a whole mass of them beat him to death," the salarian continued.

"That is crazy," the asari said.

"*tsss* If you think that is crazy, you should _see_ the aliens," said the volus, "one had these tentacles all over its body, *tsss* another jumped as high as a building, and even their ambassador had knives where her hands should be."

"I don't think I believe you," the asari replied skeptically.

"You don't have to," the salarian interjected, "she's standing right down there, now please be quiet, the negotiations are about to start."

Sha'ira tore her eyes away from the politicians and looked downward. Standing at the edge of the podium was Anita, completely covered in her white robe with her guards just standing a few feet behind her. Across from her the Council members walked into view.

Anita gave the Council a deep bow, which the Council returned in kind. Anita then brought her arms up, the sleeves rolling down to reveal her hands, and with two fingers she gripped the folds of her hood and pulled it back to reveal her bone-white hair.

Sha'ira heard the asari from earlier give a small gasp in shock.

"Greetings Councilors," Anita said, her glowing yellow eyes focusing on each of them.

"Greetings," replied Tevos, the asari Councilor, "I believe that we have much to discuss."

"Yes we do," said Anita, "like reparations for one."

"And prisoners of war for another," Tusparas, the turian Councilor, added tersely.

Anita focused on him, "You will receive all of your soldiers back, once we get our reparations."

"And what kind of reparations do your people have in mind?" Tevos questioned politely, leaning slightly forward, she had a small peculiar kind of smile on her face. Sha'ira had been a friend of Tevos for many years, and had picked up on some of her quirks. And she knew that Tevos only got that kind of smile when she had a plan, an ingenious kind of plan that made her absolutely giddy.

"Resources mostly, a lot of resources, Desolas bombed Shanxi, our planet, with the intention of ruining its ecosystem. We stopped him, of course, but…" Anita shrugged her shoulders, "the damage is there. Not to mention, the irreplaceable lives that were lost, civilian deaths are ugly no matter which way you cut it," Tusparas nodded solemnly at that, "My leaders will not be happy, unless we are reimbursed two-fold the value of what we lost."

"The Hierarchy is willing to compensate your losses by handing over ownership of two mineral rich asteroid belts along with two million credits," Tusparas said pointedly.

"_They are?"_ Sha'ira thought with surprise. Then again, considering what she knew of turians, this was not much of a surprise. After all, these are the people that valued duty above all else. The fact that Desolas failed so miserably at his, must have been chewing them up on the inside.

"But that is as far as we'll go," Tusparas finished.

"_Of course, they are also a prideful race, who does not like to lose,"_ She thought dolefully, _"even if it was a war they had no idea they were fighting."_

"Mmm, we might be willing to accept the asteroid belts," Anita said thoughtfully, "but we won't accept foreign money."

"What about colonization rights of the Skyllian Verge?" Tevos asked suddenly.

Across the terrace that Sha'ira was leaning on was a batarian politician, more specifically known as the ambassador of the Hegemony. He was dressed quite formally and was taking a sip from his drink. A tasteful asari brandy that was very expensive.

He was now choking on it.

"The Skyllian Verge?" Anita rolled the words over her tongue. She then crossed her arms and gave Tevos a stare, "Where and how large is the Skyllian Verge?"

Tevos tapped the console panel in front of her and a large holographic map of the galaxy appeared in the center of the chamber. Another tap and the Skyllian Verge was highlighted blue.

Anita's glowing eyes widened slightly at the sight of it.

"Interesting, I'll have to inform my leaders of this," Anita kept her voice cool, but the surprise was there. "Will you please excuse me while I contact them."

"Of course," Tevos said politely, and with that, both parties bowed respectively to each other and walked away. Anita and her guards going down the stairs, and the Council going back into their Private Discussion Chamber.

Sha'ira wasn't watching them though; she had her eyes on the batarian ambassador. He was angry, his four eyes scrunched up in fury. With a sharp turn, he marched to his office, no doubt with the intent to inform the Hegemony of the Council's recent actions.

The corners of Sha'ira's lips curved upward, _"So that's her plan."_

Officially, the Skyllian Verge was not claimed by any race. Unofficially, the batarians called dibs. The reason the Skyllian Verge was mostly uncolonized, was because not many people wanted to live so close to the Batarian Hegemony, who was well known throughout the galaxy through their capture and use of slaves. They were also not the most liked race in the galaxy, especially after their fleet bombarded a salarian colony and when they annexed Esan, an independent asari world.

The Council systematically avoided war by giving the humans colony rights to the Skyllian Verge, and weakened the Batarian Hegemony by directing the human's military away from Citadel Space and pointing it toward the criminal gangs and batarian slavers that populated the space around the Verge. This would, hopefully, put a dent in the Hegemony's slave-fueled economy.

Anita was sitting alone on a bench in front of a lavish fountain that was tucked in the corner of the chamber, her body guards stood behind her to deter anyone from approaching her. She reached into her robe and pulled out a small rectangular device. Delicately holding it at the tips of her sharp claws, she brought it to her lips.

"Call Captain Joseph," she said.

"Call Captain Joseph, is this correct?" the device asked in a synthesized voice.

"Yes,"

"Calling Captain Joseph,"

After a short while, Anita held the device away from her, and the device produced a holographic vid of Joseph. He was sitting at a desk and he gave her a smile.

"Ah, Anita, so how did the negotiations go?" Joseph asked casually.

"It's still ongoing actually, but it is going better than what we expected," Anita replied, "I need you to send a message to the Arcturus Station, it's about what the aliens are offering us."

"Can do, what is it?"

She told him.

"Oh, wow, the Collective is going to love this," he said, "alright, just wait for a few minutes while I send the message." He quickly left off-screen, and Anita was left to wait silently until he returned. Anita took this opportunity to check on her guards. Both of them were trying to keep as still as possible to look professional to the aliens, but the anxious way they wringed their hands and tapped their feet indicated how antsy they were.

"Alright, I'm back," Anita looked back at the device to see Captain Joseph there again.

"That was fast," she noted, "so what's the input?"

"Well, the admiral was suspicious as always, but other than that, everyone made up their minds pretty quickly," he replied, and then he gave her a thumbs-up, "You've got the go-ahead."

**Author's Note**

**Alright, so originally this chapter was going to be much longer, but I decided to cut it in half and put the second part in chapter 3. I didn't expect the negotiations to be over 2000 words, but hey, that's politics for you. Anyways, chapter 3 is going to have the big reveal, the 'oh, by the way, we're zombies' dilemma, and the classification of the different types of infected, plus maybe a bit of a look back at what happened at Shanxi.**

**I would also like to thank those who reviewed my story. Remember, reviews give us writers so much motivation to continue writing.**

** .5: thank you for giving this story a shot and thank you for being the first reviewer. And do not worry, all will be explained, …eventually.**

**Lay Down Hunter: thank you.**

**Matalvis: hey, thanks for the info, and you're right this will be a challenge, which is exactly why I'm doing it.**

**Genaric Name: …maybe.**

**Again, thanks for the reviews. I only ask that you give me more. And please, don't hesitate to give me some criticism; I need it as much as I need the praise.**

**Omake 1**

Anita was sitting alone on a bench in front of a lavish fountain that was tucked in the corner of the chamber, her body guards stood behind her to deter anyone from approaching her. She reached into her robe and pulled out a small rectangular device.

A fact that one of her guards noticed.

"Wait a minute, that robe doesn't have any pockets," he said, "where did you keep that?"

"Oh, I stuffed it in my bra," she said nonchalantly.

The guard turned to his female counterpart in amazement, "so you women do keep things in your bra?"

"Yes, we do," she replied simply.

"Yup," Anita added.

"Of course," said Sha'ira

"It's very convenient," Tevos said.

"Fascinating," said Mordin.

**Omake 2**

"…and finished," said Liara, as she tapped the final letters of her Essay Paper. Now she can go out and turn it in to her professor. Yes, she supposed she could have done it later, after all, it's not actually due until a few weeks. In fact, the professor gave her and her classmates extra time on it, because apparently there was some kind of big event going on at the Citadel, but she didn't want to take any chances.

Taking the datapad that contained her Essay, she exited her dorm room and headed toward the campus, but not before stopping at the lounge.

At the lounge, she found her classmates leaning over tables and groaning in pain, the room was filled with a horrid stench, the floor was covered in a putrid muck, and the holo-vid was playing Citadel News in the back.

"…Uh, did I miss something?"


	3. Chapter 3

Left 4 Dead is owned by Valve.

Mass Effect is owned by Bioware.

First Infection

It's a dream come true, really.

After Anita was given the go-ahead, she went back to the Council to let them know that humanity had accepted their terms. The Council will give humanity the two asteroid belts and colonization rights of the Skyllian Verge, and in return humanity will call off the war and return the fifteen hundred turian soldiers that they had captured. After signing the peace treaty, a memory that Anita looked on fondly, especially when she remembered all the surprised faces when they saw how expertly she wrote with a pen, the Council offered humanity a proposition.

Join the Citadel government and become a part of the greater galactic community.

The pros would be great: better trade agreements, a boost in their economy, a military alliance, and many other benefits. Of course, the process of gaining an embassy on the Citadel took years, and humanity would have to follow Council laws. The Council gave her a datapad that contained a copy of all the laws and regulations that a member of the Citadel government had to abide by, which Anita took to the cruiser.

"Well, so far they look reasonable," said Joseph, as he read from the datapad.

He and Anita were in his quarters, looking over the information. Anita was no longer wearing the white robe, instead it was just some shorts and a shirt for her. When she returned to the cruiser, the CSV Angeles, her bodyguards had immediately dropped any pretenses of professionalism and started leaping all around the ship. Hunters liked to move around a lot, so after a whole day of them staying still and trying to stay as professional as possible while they watched her go through meetings, Anita decided to give them a break to relieve all that pent up energy. They were last seen running into a closed-off room and locking the door.

"I think we should accept," Anita said excitedly.

"That decision is up to the Collective," Joseph said as he set the datapad down on his desk and sat down in his swiveling chair, "I'll send them the data, and they can look it over and decide what to do. It is what their paid to do, after all."

Joseph opened a drawer and pulled out cigarette box. Taking one out, he lit the end of it, and soon enough grey smoke was rising up to meet his own naturally-made green smoke.

"But hey, enough about that," he said happily, "let's have a toast for Anita: the first human to have a peaceful meeting between aliens, that weren't either extinct or stark-raving mad." Joseph reached over and pressed an intercom button on his desk, "Cassandra, could you please come up to my quarters and whip up a couple of sandwiches for Anita?"

"Sandwiches?" Anita asked with a raised eyebrow and a bemused tone.

Joseph took a drag from his cigarette, "Don't ever underestimate the simple pleasures," he wagged his finger at her, and strangely enough one of his many tongues too, "I guarantee that after a day like today, you will remember the taste of that sandwich for the rest of your life."

After a short wait, Cassandra entered the room carrying a platter of sandwiches. A blonde boomette with a cooking apron, she had this smile on her face that never seemed to leave. A couple of commons entered the room behind her, carrying various supplies.

Setting the sandwiches on the desk, she said, "Sorry 'bout the wait, I was feeding the commons in the cargo bay when I got the call," she turned toward Anita, "but enough about me, Anita, congratulations on being the first gal to ever have a friendly chit-chat with aliens."

"Oh, it was nothing," she said politely, even though it was far from nothing for her. When she was fifty years younger, she used to be quite the sci-fi geek, still is a bit actually. And now she just spent a whole day talking to aliens, the very first of her kind, it was like a dream come true for her.

"You just finished feeding the commons?" Joseph asked, Cassandra nodded, "you wouldn't happen to have any leftovers now, would you?"

"Well, I might still have a few in me," she turned to one of the commons holding a bucket and waved him over, "you, come over here and set it down on that desk."

The common shambled over to the desk and plopped the bucket on the desk, he then continued to just stand over it with a glazed look on his face. Cassandra rolled her eyes and pushed him out of the way. She then leaned over the bucket and puked a liter of bile into it.

"Bon-appetite," she said.

Joseph leaned over the bucket and gave it a big whiff, then, with a smile, he let loose the long tongue out of his mouth and let it slide into the bucket for a grab of it. But then Cassandra's sharp hands batted the tongue away. Joseph looked at her, startled.

"Now, don't just put your tongue in the bucket like that. Anita's got to eat from it too, and we don't want her to die from your germs, now do we?" Cassandra said seriously.

A moment of blank silence filled the room as both Anita and Joseph looked on in shock at just how close they came to an unwanted death.

Then everyone in the room started laughing (except for the commons, of course).

"Death by germs," Joseph said between chuckles, "good one, Cassandra," he then stretched out his tongue into the bucket, and then slithered the bile slathered appendage back into his mouth for a taste.

"Well, someone's got to be the funny one on this ship," she said whole-heartedly.

After Anita stopped giggling, she stabbed the middle of a sandwich with one of her long claws and dipped it into the bucket. Pulling it back out, the sandwich was covered in bile. Anita took a bite out of it.

"_Mmm, delicious,"_ she thought, as a bit of bile dribbled from the corner of her lips. After a few minutes of eating sandwiches, Joseph picked up the datapad, said that he had to send this information to the Collective, and left the room. Cassandra said she had to return to the kitchen and left soon after.

As Anita chowed down the deliciously bile covered sandwiches, she couldn't help but think that the days were only going to get better.

**Council's Audience Chamber**

This was unfair.

This was completely unfair.

When Joseph asked for Anita to come to his quarters to inform her of the Collective's decision, she had been ecstatic. But when she arrived, Anita found him sitting on top of his very high bookcase. It was a thing that Smokers did, they liked to be elevated from the ground, it calmed their nerves. When Joseph told her the news, Anita did what her kind does when they want to calm their nerves. She sat down on the floor, in a corner, and hugged herself.

She didn't like the Collective's decision.

But the worst part…

The worst part about the Collective's decision was that…

Anita, who was sitting in a bench in the Council's Audience Chamber, looked down at herself. She raised her arms so that the sleeves of her white robe slid down to reveal her claws; they were the blackest part of her body, twelve inches long, bony, very sharp, and very deadly.

The worst part about the Collective's decision was that she agreed with them.

"Anita Goyle," a voice called out. She looked up to see a blue alien, the same race as Sha'ira, an asari. She was wearing a revealing formal dress and was holding some kind of clipboard. She also looked nervous to be talking to Anita.

"The, uh, Council is ready to see you," the asari's eyes were focused on Anita's claws.

Anita nodded and then stood up from the bench. She thanked the asari and started the walk up the stairs, her hunter body guards following her. Soon after, she found herself standing across the chamber's chasm, with the Council members standing at the other end.

"Anita," Tevos greeted, "we have heard that you wish to inform us about humanity's decision in joining the Citadel government."

"That is correct," Anita said neutrally, "and I'm sorry to say that humanity has declined your request."

Shocked whispers filled the chamber as an audience started to gather in the terraces.

"That …is quite surprising," Tevos said, who truly was surprised, "You are the first race to ever decline joining the Citadel."

"What made you decide to not join," Tusparas asked.

"It was a number of your laws actually," Anita said, she then held up her claws in defense, "I mean, don't get us wrong. We understand perfectly well why you would set up these laws, they make sense to put up in society. But in ours …not so much."

"Which laws?" for the first time, Lavern, the salarian Councilor, spoke.

"We would like to keep which and why to ourselves," Anita said, "but I have been given permission to speak about one factor, and that is your restrictions on genetic modifications." Anita held her arms out, and gestured toward herself, "Believe it or not, but quite a while ago us humans looked pretty darn ugly. It's because of gene therapy that we came this far, and your restrictions would slow us down immensely."

"The laws are not as set in stone as you might think," Tevos objected, "certain races can be granted amnesty from some laws if their reason is just."

Anita shook her head, "I'm sorry, but even if you granted my species amnesty from all the laws, we would still have to decline for another reason entirely."

"And that is?" Tusparas asked.

Anita closed her eyes and took a deep breath, when she opened her eyes she focused on all of them, "The Collective, our race's government, has dubbed my species to be too dangerous to intermix with your own."

Dead silence filled the chamber.

"You're going to have to explain that reason," Tusparas said skeptically.

Anita stayed quiet for a few seconds, until she lifted her arms to display her deadly claws.

"What? Did you think these were the results of natural evolution?" she asked sadly, her head shaking no, "We're not leaping across buildings or spitting out are tongues at people because we evolved that way. No, we can do these things because a long time ago our species became infected with a virus that manipulated our genes and bodies to suit the virus's needs of spreading from host to host."

If the chamber was silent before, it was now deafening compared to the silence now.

"It's also why the commons, the… err, the ones that killed Desolas, are like that. And there are a lot more of them and they are everywhere on our planets. And they are hostile to anything that doesn't contain the virus."

"Your species …is infected," Tevos said cautiously.

"With a virus, yes," Anita replied.

"And you brought this virus here, to the Citadel," Lavern said warningly.

Anita brought up her claws in defense, again, "Before you jump to conclusions, I want you to know that, along with the species barrier protecting you from the virus, our scientists have managed to modify the virus so that it only affects humans. You are all perfectly safe from the virus itself."

"If your scientists can manage to stop the spread of the virus, can they not also remove it entirely?" Lavern asked skeptically.

"…No," she said, "It's a bit more complicated than you think. Either way, even though us humans will not join the Citadel, I hope that both of our governments will have a bright cooperative future ahead of us.

**Citadel STG Base, five months after the humans denied entry into the Citadel.**

"So how do we kill them?"

Matriarch Lidanya, commander of the Destiny Ascension, looked down at the salarian doctor from her seat, waiting to see what answer he would provide for the asari general sitting next to her.

"Well, you know, shooting them with mass accelerated particles usually does the job, quite nicely," Doctor Marin replied sarcastically. He was a famous scientist for being the top of his field. He was also _in_famous for his attitude.

"Now, Bubblebutt, just because you are a general for the race of blue beauty salons does not, I repeat, _does not_ mean you have the right to vaporize any of the 'ugos' that you see," some would have considered Marin to be an asari racist from that statement, if everyone already didn't know that he was like that with everyone, "remember, the humans may not be a part of the Citadel government, but they are still considered an ally, so no planetary bombardment from you alright?"

"That is not exactly what I meant," the asari replied indignantly, "and you know what I meant-"

"Bubblebutt, please be quiet, I'm trying to start a meeting here," the sarcastic tone never left Marin's voice, "Now let's get this meeting of the Military and Threat Assessment of the humans started already."

The meeting was taking place in a room that was similar to a college classroom, with the teacher's desk at ground level and the students' desks rising up into the opposite wall. The difference for this classroom was that, instead of it being located on a campus it was located in the STG base on the Citadel, and instead of students, the desks were filled out with the military generals of the turians, asari, and salarians, along with STG operatives, scientists, and even a couple of Spectres were hiding in the back. Lidanya had found herself located with the asari generals, in the center of the desks.

"One of the major topics that _I'll _be going over are the different kinds of humans: like the hunters, the smokers, the boomers, the spitters, the witches, the chargers, the-"

"Uh, excuse me, Doctor Marin," a salarian scientist sitting at the front of the classroom raised his hand.

"It's Professor actually," Professor Marin wasn't looking at the salarian scientist, he just kept staring straight ahead as if he didn't hear.

"Okay, Professor Marin, I couldn't-"

"Actually, it's also Doctor too," Doctor Marin interrupted.

"Uh, Doctor-Professor Marin…?" the salarian asked, questionably.

"Yes?" Doctor-Professor Marin turned toward the questioner, now giving the scientist his full attention.

"_By the Goddess, he really has an ego, doesn't he?"_ Lidanya thought in amazement.

"Well, I couldn't help but notice the naming of the different species," the unnamed scientist asked, "I mean, 'hunter' sounds reasonable, but 'spitter' or 'boomer?' Isn't there some kind of genus we could go by?"

Marin had this smile on his face that made Lidanya a bit nervous.

"Nice hearing there, _but, _there is one little tidbit that you messed up, it's not different species. The humans are all still the same species, they just become infected with the virus and react differently," Marin started slowly pacing in front of them, "but, to answer your question: yes, there are names for the symptoms of the virus that can fit into the taxonomic system."

Marin walked to his desk and picked up a book, "In fact, by our information, the humans have already classified the names by a combination of words from one of their dead languages, Greek or something I don't care about. _But…_" Marin swiveled on his feet and pointed toward the salarian that asked the question. "You, what's your name?"

"Uh, Mordin sir, err, Doctor-Professor," the startled salarian said.

"I don't care. Now, Doctor Nervous , would you please stand up, take this book, turn to page forty-two, and read the names of these symptoms, not out loud though, I just want the class to focus on your face."

The young Mordin did just what he was told, and when he read the words his eyes widened and his mouth fell open in shock. Suddenly, Marin jumped next to Mordin and pointed at his face.

"_That_ is the shocked face of a relatively-smart biologist. Now on average, a scientist has to say words that contain about five syllables _more_ than what you soldiers usually have to _think_ about. So, I am as sure as the Wheel-Of-Life that I'm not going to be repeating these words for you, because it's just going to fly over your heads and waste more of my time. If you really want the headache, then just buy my book."

He turned to Mordin, "You can return to your seat now."

"Uh, thank you, Doctor-Professor,"

"And stop that stuttering, I don't care if you have to speak in fragments, just stop that stuttering," he focused on everyone, "Now let's get on with the assessment, shall we?"

Marin returned to pacing around the room again, "Humans have had extensive and varied mutations caused by the virus, but before I go into the more differential mutations, I want to start with the more shared ones."

"For example, on their hands and feet they have grown a special type of setae, which are hair-like structures. These setae allow the humans to cling to vertical surfaces, and give the humans an unparalleled skill in climbing. They also have an incredible amount of stamina, as they are able to run for hours without tiring. And finally, they have regenerative capabilities, although it's nothing as fast as the vorcha or krogan to be useful in short battles, they can instead regrow entire limbs in the course of a few weeks."

Marin activated his Omni-tool and a hologram popped up in the front of the room to show a figure of a human.

"Now, according to the humans, they call this a 'common.'"

It was the same kind of humans that had ripped Desolas apart. Average height, average stature, it was all around average except for the glazed look on its face.

"The commons are the closest in appearance to pre-virus humanity and are the least mutated out of all of them." Marin started to pace around the image.

"Individually, they are a weak threat, but there is never just one of them." Marin used his Omni-tool again and the image was replaced with a picture of the commons covering an entire field. Where the STG got this picture, Lidanya did not know.

"The commons are a greater threat when they are in large numbers, which is about, _mmmm, _ninety-nine point nine, nine, nine, nine percent of the time. And they keep these numbers by way of their reproduction abilities." The image was replaced with two commons doing… err.

"_Okay, now I don't even want to know how they got these pictures,"_ Lidanya thought with disgust.

The picture showed a female common bending over and a male common behind her. Both still had glazed looks over their faces.

"From what we've learned, the commons mate whenever a female is ovulating, which is about once every few weeks. When a female becomes pregnant, the gestation lasts about four standard months until the birth of the newborn. Then the newborn will mature rapidly into an adult over the course of three years. This rapid growth results in a shorter lifespan which ends in its death about twenty-eight years later."

The hologram changed into a picture of a common's skull and brain.

"Now, the major thing that the virus did to the commons was alter parts of its brain, case-in-point: the virus wiped out any sense of self-preservation, identity, or thought. Basically, the virus has turned these humans into nothing but mindless organic machines."

The picture changed into a video-loop of a horde of commons running.

"The general tactic that these commons follow is to basically blind rush the enemy, where upon reaching said enemy they …well, I think we've all seen Desolas's execution."

Lidanya involuntarily shuddered.

"But, what makes them more dangerous is what the human's military does with them. We've had reports of commons wearing armor, wearing shield generators, having serrated blades attached to their arms, and even some wearing explosives."

Marin stopped pacing to address the audience.

"The humans that can talk have categorized themselves as 'Special Infected,' and have mutated extensively internally and externally. We will be switching the focus on to them now. Their reproductive habits and life-span are unknown as well as many other factors, unfortunately we don't have as much information on them as we do the commons, so we'll just have to make do."

That's a lie, of course. The STG knows more about the humans then they were willing to share. Everyone in the room knows it, and everyone in the room was smart enough to not call them out on it.

The image changed into a picture of a bloated human.

"This is a boomer. Mutations include: claws, skin that's two-times as tough as a common's, and the formation of a number of sacks inside its body which produce various kinds of bile. These boomers can be considered the shepherds of the infected, as they are the only ones that the commons seem to listen to. When a boomer is with a horde of commons, some kind of mimetic effect happens on the commons that makes them more receptive to commands. This seems to only happen with boomers."

"What purpose does the bile serve?" someone asked.

"We believe that it works similar to the way insects use pheromones: to mark people as threats. But we also suspect that the bile has other unknown uses."

The image changed to a crouching human, wearing a hooded jacket.

"This is a hunter. Mutations include: the ability to leap long distances, very sharp claws, skin that's three-times as strong as a common's, and very sensitive eyes, which indicates why we've only ever seen them wear clothing that conceals the top-portion of their face. We believe that they have some kind of pack mentality, but we're not too sure about that. What we _are_ sure about though, are that these hunters are the most mobile out of all of them."

The image changed to a video of, what looks like, a military squad of hunters flawlessly jumping over rooftops and other obstacles.

"_They move so …easily,"_ Lidanya thought as she focused on one hunter actually do a flip over an arch.

The video then changed to a picture of a standing human with tentacles popping out of its body and green smoke above its head.

"This is a smoker. Now, I know what some of you are thinking," Marin had that sarcastic tone, again. "You are all thinking: 'wow, what's with all those tentacles? I sure do hope that the great Doctor-Professor Marin will enlighten me.'"

"_I wonder if it's possible to beat a salarian to death with a torn up Doctorate?"_ Lidanya thought bemusedly.

"Well, let tell me tell you," Marin said with a high-and-mighty voice.

"_Maybe it will help if I used biotics. Either way, I'll have fun trying."_

Marin pointed at the tentacles, "Those are not tentacles," he proclaimed, "they are tongues."

"…_What?"_

"These tongues act similar to the one in its mouth: they taste, and they bend, in fact the only difference really is that they are longer and can grab things," Marin said as he paced around the hologram, "but the most dangerous appendage is the one inside its body."

The image changed to a still-image of the smoker that was at Kowla stadium, with the appendage flying in mid-air.

"This appendage is similar to a tongue, but with some noticeable differences. Like how it can reach a hundred feet in length, and its ability to be regrown in a matter of minutes."

"Wait," interrupted a turian general, "how can it keep a hundred foot tongue in its body like that?"

"I imagine the same way with our intestines," Marin replied, "it bends itself around. But where intestines have to make room for passing food-substances, this appendage just has to fit inside the body, so it has a greater length. Now, what makes this appendage so dangerous…"

The still-image started playing as a video, showing the appendage wrap around Desolas.

"…is that it can ensnare people."

"Is it possible to escape its grasp?" an STG operative asked.

"Possibly, but from the observations we have made, we have found that the tongue has a sort of muscle reflex that tightens painfully around the ensnared subject. Your best bet is to have a teammate save you, or just try to avoid the tongue altogether."

"Now besides the tongues, smokers also produces green smoke for unknown reasons and its skin is about as tough as a hunter's."

The video stopped playing and turned into an image of a small, hunched over human.

"This is a jockey," Marin said, "it doesn't seem that threatening, but that's where you'll be deceived. It is very strong and is about five times as tough as a common. Its fingers and toes are more extended than most humans, and its feet are double-jointed, so we believe that it is very good at climbing. But other than that, we don't know much about them."

Marin shrugged his shoulders, "In fact, the closest we can come up with were turian survivors who had heard back on Shanxi about some small enemy soldiers that jumped on your back."

The picture changed to a much taller human, who's only strange feature seems to be an unusually long neck.

"This is a spitter," Marin said helpfully, "they have developed the ability to spit out an extremely corrosive ball of acid and they can do this by opening their mouth, _really_ wide."

The image changed to a picture of the same human's mouth open, except not only was the mouth open, its jaw was also unhinged.

"_Wow,"_ thought Lidanya, _"that is wide."_

"The spitter's skin is only as tough as a boomer's, but it is also entirely resistant to any kind of acid. No doubt, because of its own acidic abilities."

"How dangerous is the acid?" an STG operative said.

"It can chew through armor very easily, but luckily the acid fizzles out after a few seconds. The problem though, is that it has a very large splash radius, so you'll need to be fast on your feet."

The image of the spitter changed to a picture of a large human with a very large arm.

"This is a charger, and as you can see, it has a _very_ big arm. And you do _not _want to meet this guy in an alley, mostly because you will have nowhere to go if he charges at you." Marin pointed at the arm, "Now the virus has mutated these humans' bodies to grow some kind of biological armor around its arm, and also increase its muscle mass in the arm and the legs. Its skin is about seven times as tough as a common's, and it has the ability to sprint to incredible speeds for a short amount of time."

The image changed to a picture of Anita Goyle, she was standing in the Council's Audience Chamber, and she was showing off her claws.

"This is a witch," Marin said impassively, "we have discovered, through discreet biological scans, that her skin is nearly ten times as tough as a common's, her claws are more durable than steel, and she has the strength to pierce it."

Marin took a deep breath, "And finally we have the tank."

The picture of Anita Goyle changed into…

"Oh… my… Goddess," Lidanya said out loud, as did the asari next her, as well as the various aliens around her saying their own exclamations.

The holographic picture in front of her showed her a figure of epic proportions. It was a picture of a battlefield, with half-a-dozen turian soldiers firing on a single armored monster.

"We don't have much information on the tank," said Marin, "All we can be sure is that the virus must have increased its muscle mass exponentially, and that it is incredibly dangerous."

Marin turned off the hologram.

"Alright," Marin said cheerfully, "That's all the information the STG has," And is willing to share, went unsaid, "So, any questions?"

"What types of military vehicles do the humans have?" an asari general asked.

"The humans don't have many ground vehicles, apparently being able to effortlessly climb and run anywhere without getting tired has its perks. The military vehicles they _do_ have are mostly air-to-ground and air-to-air combat fighters, and troop/cargo transports. Other than that, the tank _is_ their ground vehicle."

"What about starships?" a turian general asked.

"We're not too sure about their numbers, but it seems that, on average, their ships are slightly bigger than ours. This most likely has more to do with adjusting to all of the humans' varying statures and increasing the size of the cargo room to hold all of the commons. But I wouldn't worry too much about their size anyways, after all, size doesn't really mean much in space."

"What about their homes?" a salarian operative asked, "if we were to land on one of their planets, what would the biggest difference be compared to one of our own?"

"Well, if the scans of Shanxi are anything to go by, the humans seem to have two kinds of civilizations. One, are the incredibly tight cities, and I _do_ mean tight, because if you travel far enough into them the streets disappear and then it's just buildings next to buildings next to buildings with buildings on top of other buildings and _more_ buildings. It really does become a concrete jungle in there. Now, on the _other_ end of the spectrum are the mud houses and villages located inside the _green_ jungle, which seem less about living in poverty and more about living in nature."

Marin took a moment to look around, "Now, are there any other questions, or can I _finally_ go back to my life?"

"I have a question."

Lidanya turned around to see that it was an asari spectre that spoke up. She walked down the stairs in full body armor.

"This virus seems to have given the humans a lot of perks, did it also give them any disadvantages or setbacks?" she asked strategically.

"Disadvantages?" Marin leaned forward and started talking like he was speaking to a child, "Lady, I'm _pretty _sure that the complete wipeout of any conscience thought from ninety percent of the population _is_ considered a disadvantage of this virus."

The asari spectre wasn't fazed by Marin's sarcasm, "Marin," she said with a smile, "please, don't test my patience."

Lidanya suddenly had this feeling of dread wash over her.

Marin just gave her this impassive stare for a few seconds, until finally, "…Yes, there are a few things. For one, any ground-combat in space, zero gravity, or any area without oxygen seriously dampens most of their abilities."

The asari spectre nodded.

"There is also biotics."

"Biotics?" she asked, confusion shown on her face.

Marin nodded, "Yes, humans are entirely incapable of using biotics."

_That _got everyone's attention.

"How is that possible?" she asked.

"Well, there's this human testing facility located somewhere near Shanxi that nobody knows about." Marin had this cheeky smile, "You see, when the humans found out about biotic potential, they decided to test it out. So, they exposed element zero to commons and to the fetuses of some commons to see if they could get results."

Marin shook his head and said wistfully, "You know, I really envy those human scientists. Those commons are the perfect living test subjects: easy to replace, no worries about infringing upon their sentient or animal rights because their about as smart as a VI. Why, if it wasn't for that virus always factoring into test parameters, I would have made a grab for them the first chance I got."

"Marin," the asari spectre said warningly.

"Anyways," Marin said quickly, "after the eezo was exposed, there were… disastrous results."

"What happened?"

"Well, nothing happened to those that were exposed to only a small amount, but the ninety-eight percent who were exposed to a larger amount of eezo, died. Apparently, if a great amount of eezo comes into contact with an infected human, it …well, the easiest way to say it, is that it 'supercharges' the virus." Marin had this grim tone, "The human body can't handle the stress, so it shuts down."

"What about the other two percent?" the asari spectre asked cautiously.

"…I think walking biological bomb is an apt description."

**Author's Note**

**Alright, I have a few things to address.**

**The appearance of the humans: they are much easier to look at then the infected are in the game. Nearly 200 years of medical science has cleaned them up quite nicely. The smokers don't have that massive flesh of tumors on their backs, the boomers have less warts and are only slightly larger than Coach, the spitters' mouth can return to normal, the jockeys have their lips back and don't have to hunch down as much anymore, the chargers' skull isn't deformed anymore and the other arm is in working order, and the witches have a much healthier, less starving, look to them.**

**I would also like to thank Kaioo, for being the first critic of this story, and I would like to address the issues that Kaioo brought up. Now the reason that Anita didn't notice the angry ambassador, was because he was situated up above on the terrace, out of her sight (but in Sha'ira's), and she was more focused on what the Council was giving her. Now, **_**why**_** humanity took the Skyllian Verge so readily was because of a few reasons. One: the humans were a bit nervous about the war. Oh, sure they won **_**one**_** battle against **_**one**_** race, but then they learned how vast the Citadel forces were. Second: it's territory. The Council didn't give the human's specific systems, instead they brought up a map of the galaxy, painted it blue, and basically said that anything and everything that is in this section of the galaxy is yours. And the best part is that the humans don't **_**have**_** to worry about grabbing every world they can find (at least in the Verge), because if someone else **_**did**_** colonize a planet in the Verge, the humans would have the full backing of the Citadel government and its forces in liberating that planet.**

**Again, thanks for the critique Kaioo, I really had to think about it.**

**Also, I'm sure that some of you are wondering what kind of sandwiches they ate at the beginning, but let's be honest people, you guys immediately imagined the tf2 sandviche, didn't you?**

**10 points for anyone who can guess who I based Marin's character off of.**

**Omake 1**

As Anita chowed down the deliciously bile covered sandwiches, she couldn't help but think that the days were only going to get better.

**Council's Audience Chamber**

This was unfair.

The Nostalgia critic's eyes widened and he pointed at the story in horror, "OH GOD! AN IRONIC TWIST TO WHAT SHE JUST SAID, OH THE HORROR"

**Omake 2**

"…No," she said, "It's a bit more complicated than you think. Either way, even though us humans will not join the Citadel, I hope that both of our governments will have a bright cooperative future ahead of us.

**Citadel STG Base, five months after the humans denied entry into the Citadel.**

"So how do we kill them?"

"OH GOD, ANOTHER ONE!"

**Omake 3**

"These tongues act similar to the one in its mouth: they taste, and they bend, in fact the only difference really is that they are longer and can grab things," Marin said as he paced around the hologram, "but the most dangerous appendage is the one inside its pants."

Marin stopped pacing around the room after he realized what he just said, where upon he bent over laughing, and so did everyone else.

"CUT" yelled the director, who was off-screen, "back to places everyone, we'll take it from the top."

**Don't forget to leave a comment or a review.**


	4. Chapter 4

Mass Effect is owned by Bioware

Left 4 Dead is owned by Valve

First Infection

A blue and green planet spinned slowly in the darkness. Covered in white spots, the clouds moved in tandem with the spinning world as it drifted steadily in the sea of stars. Its massive size was diminutive compared to the great expanse of emptiness that is space. Nothing but a colorful marble in the galaxy, carrying a multitude of tiny organisms on its surface.

An asari wearing a bright beautiful dress walked out from behind the planet.

"Shanxi," she said, her voice elegant and firm, "once, just a simple garden-world. But that changed, six years ago, when Desolas invaded."

She walked away from the planet and stood in front of an image of Desolas being hanged at the Kowla stadium.

"After a long bloody conflict, Desolas was executed for his crimes by the very people he invaded: humanity."

The image changed to various pictures of the humans.

"The Council and a diplomat of the humans were able to successfully broker a peace treaty between the two governments."

A picture of Anita Goyle talking to the Council was shown.

"Later, humanity was offered a place in the Citadel government. But, in a surprising twist, humanity declined the offer. They stated that their society was at odds with a number of our laws and that, _strangely_, they considered themselves to be too dangerous to live with us," the asari paused, "since then, humanity and the Citadel government has had a peaceful but tense relationship. With humanity rapidly expanding into space while simultaneously keeping any foreign bodies away from their planets, the Council has grown suspicious of humanity's intentions."

The asari then smiled and said, "But these suspicions might soon be laid to rest, as the human's government, the Collective, has recently released a statement saying that they will conduct cultural diplomacy with the Citadel. That is to say that they will be exchanging items of cultural significance, like films and music."

The asari started to walk away from the images, "Tonight, Citadel News has the privilege of interviewing one of humanity's celebrities. My name is Elisa and I will be your host for the evening."

**Citadel News Channel**

Elisa sat purposefully in a red cushion chair, her legs crossed, and her fingers interlaced together. Under her was a vibrant red carpet that stretched to the white walls behind Elisa and to the balcony that looked over the Presidium.

Elisa turned toward the cameras, "Good evening, tonight's subject is humanity. The mysterious race that fended off an insane general of the turian Hierarchy, executed him, and denied themselves entry into the Citadel. A race draped in mystery, one of the few confirmed facts about them is that they are infected with a virus that they refuse to cure. A revelation that only brings up more questions," Elisa picked up a cup containing some kind of liquid, after taking a sip she set down the cup on the knee-high table in front of her, "questions that will hopefully be answered by our guest."

She looked to the individual sitting opposite of herself in an equally comfy, red cushion chair.

"Would you please introduce yourself?"

A smile, "Certainly."

The women sitting across from Elisa was known to the humans as a witch, and her long claws draped over the arms of the chair. She was wearing a simple red dress that left her legs and arms bare. Her dark brown hair cascaded down her back and her eyes glowed a bright green.

"I'm a prestigious movie director and an old friend of the administrator," her voice was kind yet strong too, "but you can call me Zoey."

"Well, Zoey, could you tell us what brought up this cultural exchange? After all, your government seemed quite insistent on keeping your people separate from us."

"It's not that we don't _want_ to separate from you," replied Zoey, "we've been dreaming and hoping that we weren't alone in this galaxy for so long. And when space travel became so easy, we expected first contact to be just around the corner."

"So, if humans actually want to interact with us, then why does your government try so hard to prevent it?" Elisa questioned, "We've had reports of your military preventing any Citadel starships or any other alien starships from getting close to your planets, while also keeping your people away from our own planets."

"It's because we're dangerous," Zoey said. What caught Elisa's attention was that Zoey didn't say it with any kind of pride like how a krogan would say it, or with sadness the way a quarian would talk about their immune system. Zoey said it so simply like it was fact, as if she knew that there was no point in pretending that it didn't exist.

"There are the commons, and they are one of the major reasons why we don't let people travel to our planets. You see, they breed like crazy and we don't want to risk them spreading to your planets."

"But what about _you_?" Elisa asked, "Can't you and the rest of the humans visit our planets without bringing any of your commons?"

"Try convincing that to a boomer," Zoey joked, but then she shook her head, "but no, we are also part of the problem. Us humans have a high pain tolerance and can heal from anything that didn't out right kill us, easily. You guys can't. If a human got an arm accidently sliced off by someone like me," Zoey gestured toward herself with her deadly claws, "it's not really a big deal. I mean, yeah, sure the guy would probably be pretty miffed for a while, but give him a week or so and that arm has probably grown back by then. Now, if I applied the same situation to one of you guys, I doubt the problem is going to be resolved in a few weeks."

"An elcor can crush a person by simply stepping on them, yet they have an embassy on the Citadel," Elisa rebutted, "and the krogan can be very dangerous too, but they're still seen often enough. I'm sure that with a little self-control, humans can do the same."

For a moment Zoey didn't say anything, and Elisa though that she had convinced her. But that didn't last long, as Zoey opened her mouth to speak.

"There are two sides to us humans," Zoey said as she raised two claws to make her point, "first, there is our human side, which allows us to be philosophical, to do math, to create art, to be able to learn science, and basically anything else we could do before we were infected. _But_," Zoey said in a more gloomy fashion, "then there's the side of us that was created by the Virus. The side of us that's more animalistic, that loves the taste of blood, the feel of flesh ripping upon our claws, and to do _other_ kinds of urges."

Elisa remained quiet.

"We satiate these urges by going out in nature to hunt and kill," Zoey explained, "or by simply making a jump to the left, cutting off the head of a common, and feasting on its entrails."

Elisa took a momentary nervous glance at Zoey's claws before speaking, "Why are you even bothering with this cultural exchange, if you believe that you and the rest of humanity is so dangerous?"

"Being dangerous and being hostile are two different things," Zoey answered, "I mean, it's not like we're _planning_ to destroy the Citadel and everything that you hold dear, no, that's not it at all, we just have a few …instinctive tendencies that we have to deal with," Zoey leaned forward, "social problems aside, we really do want this to go well."

"Well, that's good at least," Elisa replied, "but I think we've strayed off topic. Let's get back to discussing what we're really here for." Elisa leaned back in her chair comfortably and gestured for Zoey to speak, "Zoey, as a prestigious film director, could you tell us what kinds of movies we'll be seeing from this exchange."

Zoey smiled, "Oh, you'll be seeing all kinds of movies, although most of them are pre-virus movies."

"Pre-virus?" Elisa questioned.

"It's basically anything that was made or had existed before we were infected," Zoey answered.

"Ah, I understand," Elisa nodded, "so why are these movies the majority?"

"Because they're safe," noticing Elisa's confused expression Zoey explained, "the movies were made before the pandemic and don't show many insights into our present day society and culture."

"Doesn't that go against the whole point of this cultural exchange?"

"No, because there are still plenty of post-virus movies too," Zoey replied, "and we think that the pre-virus movies will be a good comparison to present day humanity, to show what has and what hasn't changed about us."

"What about yours?" Elisa asked, "You're a film director, are any of your movies being shown?"

Zoey nodded, "Yeah, there's one specific film I made that I personally recommend, it's classified under the horror genre."

"Horror?" Elisa's face scrunched up in confusion. She had never watched a horror movie before, she had seen some police and military movies that had some terrifying scenes, but Elisa never imagined anyone making an entire genre around the very subject of horror.

"Yeah horror, you know, movies that are based around scaring people," Elisa still looked confused, "do you not have those?"

Elisa shook her head no.

"Wow," an amazed Zoey said, "that's a real shame. I can't even imagine where I would be without horror movies, heck, if it wasn't for the zombie films I probably wouldn't have survived the pandemic."

"Zombie films?"

"Zombie films are about the dead coming back to life, en masse, to eat the flesh of the living," Zoey answered, "when the pandemic hit, it was like practically being in a zombie film."

"Are you saying that you are a walking corpse?" Elisa asked.

Zoey's eyes widened and she started laughing, "Oh, no, no, no, we're still very much alive. I'm just saying that the experience was very _similar_ to a zombie film."

Elisa was about to say something, but she then remembered an earlier comment, "Wait, hold on, did you say that you were alive during the pandemic?"

"Yup," said Zoey

"I thought that the pandemic happened a long time ago, when humanity was still only living on their home planet?"

"It did," Zoey answered, "it was around one hundred fifty years ago when it happened."

"So, that makes you…"

"One hundred sixty-eight years old," Zoey said bashfully, she then rubbed her arm in an embarrassed manner, "I'm sorry, you probably thought I wasn't older than you. Not that I can blame you, I mean by pre-virus standards I only look like around thirty-five."

"You're not older than me," Elisa replied.

Zoey stopped rubbing her arm.

"I'm over three hundred years old," said Elisa, "my species can live for over a thousand years."

Zoey gave Elisa a once-over and then said, "Okay, now that's just not fair. My species had to have a _virus_ infect us just to extend our lifespans past a hundred."

Elisa just gave her an apologetic shrug.

Zoey sighed, "Oh well, I guess I shouldn't complain. But anyways, yes I am a survivor of the pandemic, more specifically I'm an L4D."

"What's an L4D?" Elisa asked.

"It's an acronym," Zoey answered, "it means: left for dead, which means that I was a survivor that was left behind by our government to fend off the infected horde."

"That must have been terrible."

Zoey laughed, "That's the understatement of the century, and I should know, I lived through that century."

As Zoey had a good laugh, Elisa shuffled uncomfortably in her seat. She had been ordered by her boss to ask their visiting celebrity a few specific questions. Questions about humanity that many people wanted answers to, and Elisa was feeling a bit trepid about asking them, but she was a reporter and she will ask them because it was her duty to ask them.

"Zoey, can you tell me about the pandemic?" Elisa asked confidently.

"Sure," Zoey said.

"_Oh,"_ thought a surprised Elisa, _"that was easier than I thought it would be."_

"Okay, uh, how did the pandemic start?"

"I remember first hearing about it at college on the television," Zoey answered, "reports of the Green Flu sweeping the nation."

"The Green Flu?" Elisa asked, "Is that what you call the virus that infects your bodies?"

"It's what we called it back then."

"What about now?"

"The Virus," Zoey answered, she then gave a small shrug, "just …the Virus. After all, there's not really any other viruses out there that can do anything to us."

"Why not?"

"Because the Virus destroys them," Zoey said, "Any and all diseases or dangerous chemicals that enters our body gets destroyed by the Virus. You'll have to ask a scientist if you want specifics though."

"Did the Virus come from nature, or was it made in a lab?" Elisa asked.

Zoey blinked, "We're not sure, there was so much chaos and it was so widespread that we're honestly not sure where it started."

"What was living through the pandemic like?"

"It was tough, every day was a battle for survival. And I do mean _battle_, because every day there were more infected, around every corner there were a dozen infected ready to tear you apart, and there was always a special infected," Zoey gestured toward herself, "us, that was lurking behind you."

"Were they all hostile?"

"Yes."

"Why are you not hostile now?"

"Because some of our scientists were able to modify the Virus," Zoey answered, "they made it less…damaging to the brain."

"Why are the commons still hostile?"

Zoey sighed, she seemed to be getting tired of all the questions, "The scientists said that there was too much damage to the commons' brains, that it was impossible to repair them. The special infected were saved, because the Virus focused less on their brains and more on their bodies."

"When did you become infected with the Virus?"

Zoey smiled, "At the end of the pandemic, when _everyone_ became infected."

"Why did everyone become infected?"

"Why indeed," Zoey was still smiling, "they called it a _global_ solution."

Elisa stayed quiet so that Zoey could continue explaining, but she never did. Elisa was about to question further when Zoey interrupted her.

"Look," Zoey said with the same tone she had throughout the interview, except now it had a bit more weight to it, "if you really want to know what life was like during the pandemic, then I suggest you watch my movie, it details the events of a group of survivors during the pandemic."

"Alright," Elisa relented, "but what about _after_ the pandemic, what was life like after everything was done?"

Zoey looked up in thought, "Well, most governments were still operating, underground and underpowered, yes, but still operating none the least. The cities were without power, we didn't have as many luxuries as we used to have. The entire world was no longer burning, but it was burnt. All-in-all, we had a lot of work to do."

"Like what?"

"Powering up generators, getting factories in working order, giving people jobs, setting up communities, creating an economy," Zoey listed off, "you know, stuff like that."

"What about finding homes for people, or repairing the environment?" Elisa asked.

"Finding homes was easy," Zoey said with a grim humorous tone, "just find an empty room in one of the many abandoned buildings and sit in it. As for repairing the environment," Zoey gave an indifferent shrug, "Well, let's just say that that problem took care of itself."

Zoey shook her head, "No, the _real_ problem was our mentality."

"What do you mean?"

Zoey stared at Elisa, "Our world had been turned upside down, our cities were crumbling, our families and friends were either dead or walking around as a common, while the rest of us," Zoey raised her claws, "were turned into monsters. Can you picture it? Turning into the very monsters that destroyed your world and you learned to hate, while those very same monsters were regaining their intelligence and memories, if even that. Some didn't get their memories back, never knew who they once were, while some actually remembered what they did during the pandemic," a sigh, "there were a lot of suicides."

Elisa wasn't sure if she should ask this, but, "Did you ever consider…"

"No," Zoey laughed, _laughed_, "I never once thought of doing that."

"I… don't find the humor in that question," Elisa said. She honestly thought that Zoey would be more offended by that question than anything else.

Zoey gave Elisa a smile, a nostalgic kind of smile that a grandparent would give their grandchild when they were about to tell them an old war story, "Elisa," Zoey's voice was full of pride, "for nearly four straight years, I had fought for my life against an ever-present enemy that did not know fear. To survive, I had to eat whatever was edible, even if it was out of a trashcan, I had to kill people that I recognized as friends, and I had to fight alongside with complete strangers. And not once, did I ever lose my resolve to live."

Still wearing that smile on her face, Zoey raised her claws up, "So, no. Me turning into Mrs. Scissorhands wasn't going to do me in."

Elisa nodded in understanding, "What about the children, how well did they adapt?"

"Quite well, actually," Zoey said, "In fact, those buggers actually liked it. They kept jumping everywhere and climbing over everything, the only real problem was keeping them from climbing too high and starting fights with infected-born kids."

"Infected-born kids?"

"Kids who were born from an infected during the pandemic," noticing Elisa's confusion Zoey said, "that probably needs explaining. You see, during the later years of the pandemic some parts of the world were becoming filled with only infected humans. And without any people for the infected to hunt, the Virus started to become less active in their bodies and the infected became more animalist. They started to regain their survival instincts, like actually hunting for food and not just out of impulse, they started to roam in packs, which led to socializing, which led to… well, mating."

"How did your people learn about this?"

"A few of the saved infected who remembered everything, told us about the experience," Zoey answered, then she started to giggle, "It was quite a shock for the saved infected who _didn't_ remember the experience."

Elisa looked at her Omni-tool to see that the time was getting late, "Well, Zoey it was great to have you here, but our time is up. We would like to thank you for answering so many of our questions, we hope to see you again soon someday, and…oh, wait a minute. I just remembered that you never told us what your movie was called."

Zoey smiled, "Remember when I was telling you about the L4D…"

**STG Base**

Marin turned off the vid, and looked toward the other occupants of the room. They were the recently inducted STG scientists and operatives.

"Alright, rookies," Marin said with his ever-present sarcastic tone, "which one of you, walking data-leaks, is actually smart enough to tell me what is the most _peculiar _tidbit about Elisa's and Zoey's interview?"

A salarian operative raised his hand to speak, but Marin interrupted on him, "Actually, on second thought, if I allowed you rookies to keep guessing until one of you stumbled upon a right answer, I would probably die of old age." Marin raised his hands in mock defense, "I know, I know, since I _am _getting on in years, that's not really an exuberant statement, but, darn it all, I just don't have the time for it."

Marin gave them all a hard stare, "The most peculiar tidbit of information that the human had revealed during the interview that has baffled the STG ever since it was aired, was how, I repeat, _how_ humanity was able to ascend from a worldwide post-apocalyptic setting to an up-and-coming extra-solar superpower in less than a hundred and fifty years. It should be nearly impossible for any species to recover and advance that fast, _in fact_," Marin yelled out a mocking kind of laugh, "in fact, the humans should have had an even _longer_ time recovering, because of what the Virus did to them, especially if Zoey's two sides to humanity's mentality holds up to any truth. Which, anyone who looked over the recordings of our spy drones would say, _it does._"

Marin gave out this kind of twisted and combined form of an ironic laugh and a scoff, "And I have to tell you, that the STG must really be going down the toilet it they can't even figure out the obvious answer to this question."

"Luckily for you all, _I'm _here," Marin announced snarkily, "the answer is really quite obvious…"

Everyone subconsciously leaned forward as Marin's voice deadpanned and became more serious.

"Humanity _didn't_ do it alone, someone helped them. The _real_ question, is who or what?"

**Author's Note**

**Hey, sorry this chapter took longer than usual. The day after I posted the third chapter, I went to Disneyland. And I have to say that it's **_**kind of**_** hard to write a fic about zombies when you come back from the happiest place on Earth, especially when you're practically **_**bubbling**_** with that happiness. Luckily, I was also reading ****World War Z**** at the time, so I got back into the proper mindset soon enough.**__

**Alright, so this chapter revealed a few things.**

**First and foremost: humanity is **_**not**_** a bunch of walking corpses, they are still very much alive, just infected with a virus. **

**Second: Zoey is still alive! HOORAY! But what about the other survivors? Are they still alive? This tremendous question will be answered with a mysterious: definitely.**

**Third: just to make sure that no one gets confused about the third and fourth chapter: It's just the common infected that have the shorter life-span, while the special infected have the longer-lifespan.**

**Four: there are **_**no**_** un-infected humans.**

**Also, thedoctor97 gets 5 points for guessing that Marin was based off of a character from Scrubs, but not the full 10 points because you didn't say that Marin was based off of Dr. Cox.**

**In fact, that whole Doctor-Professor bit actually came from a Dr. Cox scene in Scrubs: Med School.**

**Yes, you can now go back and read Marin's parts with Dr. Cox's voice now.**

**Dragonheart967: they just call them: pre-virus humans.**

**Kaioo: yes, this does have the potential to be awesome. How did the STG learn all this? Why with SCIENCE and espionage of course.**

**(These were originally supposed to be a part of the third chapter, but I forgot to put them in.)**

**Omake 1**

"Anita," Tevos greeted, "we have heard that you wish to inform us about humanity's decision in joining the Citadel government."

"That is correct," Anita said neutrally, "and I'm sorry to say that humanity has declined your request."

Tevos groaned, "Oh, please don't tell me it's because of something ridicules like the Treaty of Farixen. Because if it turns out that you people have a ton of dreadnoughts that you don't want to get rid of, then the turians are going to have a bitch-fit and start mass-producing their own."

"Hey!" the turian councilor cried out indignantly.

"Oh, look me in the eyes and tell me that's not true," Tevos dared.

"I'm not saying it's not true, I'm just a bit offended by the term: bitch-fit."

**Omake 2**

"Alright," Marin said cheerfully, "That's all the information the STG has," And is willing to share, went unsaid, "So, any questions?"

An asari raised her hand, "where did you get this information?"

"That's classified," Marin said.

**Meanwhile, at a remote base…**

A jockey was sipping some sweet coffee as he entered his office to find that a large blue-case was missing from his desk.

The jockey spat out the coffee.

"OUR INTELLIGENCE HAS BEEN STOLEN!"


	5. Chapter 5

Mass Effect is owned by Bioware

Left 4 Dead is owned by Valve

First Infection

**Earth**

**2012 CE**

It was almost over.

Just one bullet, that's all it took.

And all the troubles in her world would be over.

Trapped in a small wooden shack, with the infected banging on the door, a woman held a pistol to her head. She had been living in the mountains, where the population was sparse and the infected had been in few numbers. But it has been nearly four years since the Green Flu had spread out across the world, and the hordes of infected had finally reached the mountains.

They chased her, and she ran.

She ran and ran, until she found herself in an abandoned shack. As the room was filled with the constant banging of the infected as they thrashed against the door, the woman's hand shook horrendously as she held the gun to her head, her eyes closed tightly, and her finger trembled on the trigger.

A deep, horrible moan sounded behind her.

She slowly turned to find a large monster behind her. It was like an infected, but not. It was bigger than any of the infected that were banging outside the door, and it had an enormous arm that it kept suspended in front of its chest.

A moment later, the door to the shack was burst off its hinges as the large monster charged through, barreling over the infected horde, with the women captured in its giant hand, until finally crashing into a dead tree.

The women quickly put the gun back to her head, only to find that her hand was empty. The gun was most likely jostled out of her hand when she was grabbed by the monster, she started hitting the arm of the monster with her fists, while said monster was now slamming her into the ground. But to no avail.

"No!" she cried, her tears streaming down her face, "please God, not like this."

As the creature slammed her into the ground, her vision started to blacken, and she could do nothing, but stare upward at the sky.

That's where she saw it.

A small ball of fire careened through the sky, leaving a thin trail of smoke behind it.

'Missile' was the word that went through her head for a split second, before the ball of fire exploded above her. The force of the shockwave knocked the monster holding her and herself nearly three meters from where they were. Hitting the ground hard, the woman shut her eyes and held her sides in pain, both from the fall and the abuse from the monster.

Suddenly, her whole body felt like she got covered in sand.

Opening her eyes, she found that her entire body was covered in some kind of green dust. Taking a closer look at her dust covered hand, she found that the green particles actually seemed to be being absorbed into her skin. She looked around in the clearing that she was located in to find that not only was the ground covered in the strange green dust, but that the green particles were also floating around in the air. Turning her head up, she saw that the area where the missile exploded seemed to have the highest concentration of the dust.

Hearing a far away explosion, she looked out into the distance to see another missile in the midst of its own explosion as a sphere of green dust seemed to expand out of it. Farther off in the distance, she saw more missiles flying past.

A deep, horrible groan sounded behind her.

She turned around to see the giant creature slowly rise to its feet. Franticly, she scrambled back away from the monster and backed herself into a fallen tree. The creature was absolutely covered in the green dust, and as it finally rose to its feet, it gripped its head with its huge hand. It seemed to be in pain, as it continued to groan loudly, and it also started to stumble around the clearing. Crashing into the foliage around it, the creature found a tree to lean on when it finally seemed to have calmed down. During the whole ordeal, its eye were shut tightly in pain, now with the pain seemingly reduced, the creature managed to get a flicker of one of its eyes open.

The white abysses that were its eyes then became wide open when they found the creature's giant arm.

Its jaw hanged open and its face was a mixture of complete shock and confusion. Its gaze trailed across the arm, as if it was confirming that the arm was, in fact, connected to its body. As it looked at the rest of its body in the same manner, the woman couldn't help but notice how its actions seemed so…

Human.

Her body seemed to have gone all tingly from that thought, as if it was telling her that everything was going to be alright.

Then that tingling feeling turned into a burning sensation, and she felt as if her body was on fire.

She yelled out in pain as her body went through horrendous spasms. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that the large creature had finally taken notice of her presence, unfortunately that was the least of her worries. The pain was everywhere, but the most excruciating parts seemed to be located inside her torso and at various pinpoints on her body. Along with the pain, the upper portion of her body started feeling weird. Unzipping her long-sleeved jacket, she tossed it to the side, and looked at her arms. Tumors were growing on her arms.

"_What's going on?"_ she thought desperately.

She felt something press against her breasts, when she looked down at them she saw that her shirt was getting tighter for some reason. She looked behind her and saw that there were strange protrusions rising from her back and pushing against the back of her shirt.

She tasted sweat and blood.

Wait, why did she taste sweat and blood when there was nothing in her mouth?

Not caring about any kind of sense of decency, she threw off the shirt. Now with only a bra covering her upper body, she stared at the protrusions. They were long and nimbly, and they kept on wriggling

They were tongues.

"Oh God," she whimpered.

Tears were going down her face when she started coughing. She was coughing up a storm for a full minute, until she finally hacked up another tongue out of her mouth. She stared at it with utter horror when she grabbed it with her hand and brought it up to her face. It wasn't her original tongue, she could still feel that one under her new tongue. This tongue was the longest out of all of them, she should know, she could feel the entire thing wriggle inside of her.

"_I'm infected with the virus,"_ she thought miserably, _"I'm a monster."_

She felt someone near her. She looked up, and set her tear-stained eyes on the creature with the giant arm. This creature, who had just recently tried so hard to kill her, now looked at her with nothing but worry on its face. This creature, this… person, was worried about her.

She sniffed back her tears.

No, she was not a monster.

_They_ were not monsters.

**Shanxi**

**2157, The First Contact War (also known as the Relay 314 Incident)**

"TO THE SOUTH! THEY'RE COMING FROM THE SOUTH!"

Adrien Victus looked down the sights of his assault rifle to see, much to his relief, only a couple dozen of the aliens running up the stairs. He ordered his team to immediately open fire on the crazed aliens, where upon the crazed aliens were torn to pieces by the mass accelerated particles. Victus turned toward the spotter, to find him shivering on top of some kind of ticket booth. Victus would have scoffed at the cowardice that was coming from the turian at any other time, but…

Victus turned back to the pile of corpses when he heard a frantic scream, to see that one of the aliens had survived the assault, picked itself up with its remaining hand, and ran toward the turian squad without any fear, only to be shot in the head.

…but he would be lying to himself if he said that he didn't lose his composure more than once on this planet.

"Soldier, you need to calm down," Victus said, trying to placate the soldier, "those numbers are hardly anything to get worked up about."

"I know, sir," Victus had to give the kid props for not stuttering, "I just never expected this kind of stuff to happen on my tour of duty."

"Nobody knows what their first combat experience will be like, or even what the next battle will be like. Didn't you learn that back at the academy?"

"I did, I did, I just… I just never thought that I would have to shoot children."

Victus didn't really know what to say to that. The turian military had strict regulations against shooting civilians, and to turians that was children. Anywhere else, and they would have been court martialed and executed, but this situation was different. The aliens here just ran straight at them, without any sense of survival, even the children. It was a kill or be killed situation.

Victus turned back toward the greenhorn when he noticed what the soldier was holding in his hands.

It was a high-caliber sniper rifle.

Victus shook his head in disappointment, and picked up something from a fallen soldier.

The greenhorn was quite surprised when a weapon was thrown at his face. Barely catching it, he looked down to see that it was a semi-auto assault rifle.

"I want you to keep watch, so detach the scope from the sniper and put it on that gun," Victus ordered.

"But sir, I'm much better with a sniper rifle," the soldier objected, although he did start detaching the scope. He was a good turian soldier.

"Precision shots won't work against this enemy, soldier," Victus reasoned, "and that sniper rifle overheats much too easily, trust me, I'm doing you a favor." Sensing that Victus might have dampened the soldier's spirits, he gave him a turian smile, "Look on the bright side. When this is all over, no one will see you as a greenhorn anymore, and you'll have stories that will give you bragging rights over even the most experienced war veteren."

The greenhorn smiled at that. Turians loved to outdo each other with old war stories.

Victus just hoped that someone will be alive to tell those stories.

When general Desolas told the fleet that they were going to apprehend a mercenary group that had illegally activated a mass relay, Victus was suspicious. Turians were no strangers to the practice of total war, but to send out an entire fleet to deal with one mercenary group? Contrary to popular belief, turians knew when to draw the line. He grew even more suspicious when Desolas ordered the fleet to not contact the Hierarchy, the Citadel, or any other outside source about this mission. But after the fleet went through the relay, Desolas revealed that they were actually there to exterminate a species that had been contaminated with a terrible virus by the mercenaries. And Victus realized that Desolas ordered all the secrecy because he didn't want politicians to debate for another solution that didn't exist while the infected spread the virus.

But now Victus was on the ground, fighting the enemy, and he didn't know what to think.

On the one talon, these aliens were definitely infected with some kind of disease. They didn't seem to have any sense of survival instincts or the ability to think.

But, on the other talon…

At the sound of glass shattering, Victus turned around to see that one of his squad members was covered in some kind of green bile, with the broken bits of a bottle at his feet.

"SPIRITS! WE HAVE A THINKER!"

But, on the other talon, there were the thinkers, as the soldiers on the field have taken to calling them. These infected aliens are intelligent and have been heavily mutated by the virus, which makes them dangerous. As to why they are the counterpoint to Desolas's story …well, Victus will reveal that later. Right now he has to keep his team safe.

As Victus took cover behind under a window, he looked outside the monorail station. Luckily for him and his team, the station was suspended off the ground and the only way into the station was to climb up the large single set of stairs that his team was keeping watch.

His team was ordered to take out the monorail station to damage the enemy's transportation system. Apparently, the planet was covered with magnetic rail systems with some connecting the planet's massive cities together while others just seemed to go nowhere. Now, _why_ command just didn't order an airstrike on the railways instead of sending a team to plant demo charges at a single station was beyond him, it's not like the entire rail system was covered in anti-air artillery. But Victus was finding that this whole invasion was just one inept decision on top of another, and sending a team through an entire enemy city _on foot,_ just to destroy a station at the very edge of the city that a good bombing could have easily done better, was just another bad decision.

At the start of the mission, his squad had ten soldiers in it, now there was only six. Two soldiers had died of their wounds, the crazed aliens had just simply reached those two the most. Another soldier had died by way of a thinker. They were on the roof of a building at the time, and while the team was shooting the crazies that were climbing up the building to get them, a soldier was grabbed by some kind tentacle and was pulled off the roof. Victus was able to shoot down the thinker before it ran off, but it was too late for the fallen soldier. Finally, the last to go was the squad leader. When the team had finally reached the station, she was the first one to enter the building, the first one to find a train that was filled with terrified faces, and the only one to get gunned down by the heavy machine gun that was mounted on the back of the train as it sped off.

With her dead, Victus became the de facto leader. It was also her gun that he gave to the greenhorn.

Victus scanned the buildings for any sign of the thinker, but he couldn't find the alien that threw that bottle of bile at his squad mate. Instead he saw something else, a whole lot of something else.

"Ah Spirits," Victus said in an irritated fashion.

There were hundreds of them, probably more. They were coming out of the buildings, through the doors and windows. Victus had no idea that there were so many near their location, and as the crazed aliens ran toward the stairs that led to the station, Victus gave the order.

"FIRE ON ALL TARGETS!" Victus yelled. As the squad unleashed their hail of fire, the crazed aliens were not only gunned down, but were also torn to pieces and lit on fire, all thanks to the squads shredder and incendiary rounds. But still they kept coming, fearlessly.

Victus put a talon to the side of his helmet and opened a COMM channel, "Jarek! Are those explosives ready yet!?"

Instead of getting an answer on the COMM channel, a turian soldier ran up to the window next to Victus and started firing at the aliens.

"Yeah, they're ready!" he yelled, it was Jarek, the team's explosive expert, "This place is ready to blow up higher than Palaven's mountains, but I'd rather not go with it!" Jarek turned to Victus while letting his gun cool off, "What's our plan for getting out of here?"

Victus sighted his gun out of the window and let off some shots at the crazed aliens, dropping down more than a few, "The original plan was to get airlifted out of here, but a recent transmission has said that all available aircraft have been reassigned to the city south of here, after-DAMN! FIRE AT THE ONE IN FRONT, IT'S GOT SHEILDS,"

A single alien ran up the stairs franticly, the difference from all the other aliens was that this one had some kind of large shield generator strapped to its back. Instead of being torn to pieces by the squad's guns, bright blue kinetic barriers shielded the crazed alien as it ran up to them. That is, until a turian soldier pointed her omni-tool at the alien, where upon the alien was stumbled back as shots of electricity surrounded the alien. Its shields were down, she had hit it with an overload, little did she know that most of the shielded crazies had explosives strapped to their bodies.

The resulting explosion took care of most of the remaining aliens.

"Anyways, all the aircraft have been reassigned to the city south of here," Victus resumed his conversations with Jarek, "after the city got flattened by orbital bombardment, all aircraft have been conducting search and rescue missions for our soldiers."

"We bombed a city with our own soldiers in it?" Jerek asked, "I thought we were holding ground over there? Rather well, last I heard."

"We were," Victus answered sourly, "But I also thought that us ground troops were only down here because the navy didn't want to risk destroying a garden world, and yet orbital bombardments are a plenty."

Jarek didn't know what to say to that, so instead he said, "So how do we get out of here?" He gestured toward the city, "Should we try to trek through the city to get back to base?"

Victus looked out the window toward the cityscape. Buildings upon buildings as far as the eye can see, with each one burning or in some kind of disrepair. Every so often an explosion in the distance would go off and another tower of smoke will rise up into the red colored sky.

Victus wasn't going back into that city if it was the last thing he did, especially since he knew its fate.

"No, we've been making too much noise here at this station, no doubt the enemy has taken notice and is sending reinforcements. If we went back into the city we would most likely be overtaken by numbers," Victus said reasonably, "we've been fighting for too long to stand a chance, we're tired."

"So what do we do?"

"Well… we _are_ in a train station," Victus said as he pointed a talon behind him, "and there _is_ a train behind us."

The white and sleek magnetic train behind them hovered over its rails. Victus noticed that it was wider than most trains, but Victus didn't really care about that, all he cared about was that it worked.

"Do you know how to work it?"

Victus thought about that for a moment, then he called out for his squad's tech expert, "Beck!"

The female turian that took care of the shielded alien stepped forward, "Sir?"

Victus pointed toward the train, "Do you think you can operate that train?"

"I think so, sir," she said confidently.

"Good," Victus turned toward his team, "how are we doing?"

"We're not dead, sir," the turian that got covered in bile said, "so that's something, but I'm pretty sure that the thinker that threw this stuff at me is still out there."

"Well, we haven't seen it yet," Victus said, "so hopefully this was just some kind of failed hit-and-run tactic, but keep a lookout anyways."

"Will do, sir-"

"SPIRITS! WE'VE GOT MORE OF THOSE CRAZY ALIENS COMING TOWARD US!" Yelled the greenhorn.

"Damn," Victus cursed, he turned toward Beck, "Beck, you're with me." He turned toward the rest of the team, "The rest of you will hold the ground until we've got the train ready. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir!"

As he and Beck entered the train, the greenhorn yelled, "CAREFUL, GUYS! THEY'VE GOT THAT LARGE THINKER DIRECTING THEM!"

Running down the aisle of the train, Victus heard the gunfire outside. He cringed, his team was not controlling their fire as much as they should. Their weapons will be overheating soon, either because there were too many aliens or because now there were only four of them.

He and Beck had now reached the front of the train, and Victus noticed that all of the control panels were holographic. As Beck walked up to the controls, Victus asked, "Can you get this train moving?"

Beck gave a small turian smile as she tapped a few of the holographic buttons, pleased to know that the interface was accepting her input, "Yeah, these controls seem simple enough. Just give me a few seconds to work with them."

As Beck said that, Victus heard a fifth roar of gunfire join the ongoing battle outside. It was probably that thinker that the greenhorn was yelling about. Victus grimaced, with his team being assaulted by an unrelenting horde and incoming fire, his team will be overrun in a matter of minutes. He probably could go out and help his team, it's not like Beck needed his help starting the train, but he couldn't do that. He had a very good reason for being in the train.

And that reason just smashed through a glass window behind him.

Turning around he saw an alien standing in the middle of the passenger car. The alien was a female, its physical stature similar to an asari's. The armor that she was wearing covered her entire body, but it wasn't bulky, instead it was very formfitting, Victus would classify it as light armor. The color was entirely black, except for a single red stripe that went down one of her arms and the red and white alien symbols on her chest. The metal helmet looked like the alien's version of the archaic gas mask, with the air filter facing forward, and the large eye pieces that shrouded the wearer's face, except for the two glowing red eyes.

But the most noteworthy feature of this alien wasn't the uniform. This alien had frightening long claws where her hands should be, and with the way they twitched, Victus was sure that the alien was raring to use them. Victus also noticed that the alien had a gun attached to her right wrist. It was a small gun, so it was probably just a submachine gun.

Victus ran into the passenger car, said to Beck, "Get this train working as fast as you can," and slammed the panel next to the door to close of Beck from the alien. He trained his assault rifle on the alien, who was already taking cover behind the train seats and had her arm pointed at him. She pulled back her claws and this somehow allowed the gun on her wrist to start firing on him. Victus fired back as he dove for cover, while allowing his kinetic barriers to take a few of her shots. Victus happily noted that the Spirits were _finally_ on his side for once, as her shields seemed to be weaker than his.

The alien was now blind firing behind cover to let her shields recharge, and as the gunfire tore up the leather seats and pierce holes in the wall behind him, Victus noted that the alien's weapon had a longer rate of fire than his own. These aliens must have good heat sinks.

Victus rose out of cover, his shields fully charged and protecting him from her gunfire. He aimed his assault rifle at her wrist and fired off a couple of shots. Victus was pleased to note that the shots hit her gun and dislodged it from her wrist, sending it flying across the car to land under some seats. She cursed loudly in her alien language.

Keeping his rifle aimed at her cover, Victus knew he had this battle won. He just had to maneuver himself to get a clear shot of the alien, while keeping his distance from her claws. Knowing that the walkway would take him too close to the alien, Victus started to step over the seats.

He stopped when he heard the sound of metal being torn.

His eyes widened.

Victus dove into the walkway as one of the train's heavy chairs slammed into where he was taking cover. Looking at the chair, Victus saw that the metal legs of the chair that connected it to the floor of the train were torn apart.

The alien had literally sliced apart the metal legs of her cover and threw it at him.

She was tenacious, Victus gave her that.

Victus sighted his gun down the walkway, only to quickly duck to avoid the alien's claws as she lunged at him. Instead of piercing turian plated skin, the alien's claws instead pierced holes into the metal door that Beck was working behind, who was quite startled at that. The alien quickly and easily pulled her claws out of the door and raised them to strike the stubborn turian. But Victus was faster. He quickly kicked the alien in her stomach away from him and trained his gun on her.

Her shields never stood a chance.

Unfortunately for Victus, she _did_.

Thinking quick on her feet, and acting just as fast, the alien jumped through the glass window out of the train.

Picking himself up, Victus quickly looked out of the windows on the side that the alien exited through and scanned for her presence. He only saw the back wall to the station. Victus turned himself around to look out the other set of windows. No sign of the alien, instead he saw two members of his squad slowly back away from the station's entrance as they fired upon the huge number of frantic aliens that tried to enter.

Wait, why are there only two…

"Hey!" Victus looked down the train to see the turian soldier that had been covered in bile stand in the section of the train that connected the passenger cars together, "We're getting overrun! Is the train read-" movement behind him.

The soldier's sentence was cut off as four black claws burst from his midsection, each one dripping with purple turian blood. The soldier convulsed in pain as he was lifted off the ground by the alien behind him. The convulsing stopped when the alien used her other hand to jam her claws into the back of the turian's head.

Holding the body in front of her, the alien made her way toward Victus.

Victus fired his assault rifle at her, but the dead soldier's kinetic barriers were still active and ended up protecting her. Halfway to Victus, the alien threw the dead soldier's body at him. The body flying faster than he thought it would, Victus was hit head-on, and he found himself on the floor with a corpse on top of him. Pushing the corpse off of his body, Victus quickly raised the assault rifle in his right hand toward the alien, only to have it kicked out of his grasp. The alien pinned his arm down with her foot and stepped on his chest with her other foot. Victus, pinned to the floor, looked up at the alien to see her raising her hand, her claws still dripping with purple blood. She was going to pierce her claws through his face and kill him.

Her head then exploded.

As red blood, bits of brain, and parts of the gas mask spread out over the car, the alien's body toppled over Victus. Stunned into a moment of silence, Victus quickly collected himself and pushed the body off of him to see quite a sight.

The greenhorn holding his sniper rifle with the detached scope.

"I told you I was better with the sniper, sir," he said.

If Victus was in any other setting he would have laughed at the situation. But he wasn't, so instead he activated his COMM link and yelled, "Beck! Are you ready to get us out of here!?"

"I am, sir!" she confirmed.

With that said, Victus then ordered for the rest of the team to get on the train.

A glass window was shattered with gunfire, where upon Jarek threw himself into the train yelling, "IT'S ABOUT SPIRITS-DAMN TIME!" Jarek pointed his assault rifle out of the broken window and fired upon the crazy aliens to help the final soldier get to the train. The last soldier had his foot on the windowsill when suddenly his kinetic barrier died and his body was rattled with horrendous gunfire. The hole-filled turian body dropped dead in the train.

Victus looked out the window to see two large aliens standing at the entrance of the station. One was slightly bloated and was pointing its arm at them, it yelled out in its alien language and the horde of frantic aliens screamed in response and seemed to double their efforts into reaching his squad. The other alien had a huge arm and was holding an equally huge gun in that arm. Victus learned that it was some kind of machine gun when the alien started firing at them.

As Jarek and the greenhorn started firing out of the window, Victus yelled into the COMM, "BECK! GET US OUT OF HERE, NOW!"

The train started moving faster than most other trains that Victus had rode on, but it wasn't fast enough, as the last few cars were about to exit the station, Victus heard an alien crash through a window.

What is that? The fourth time?

Victus ran toward the large double doors at the back of the car and looked through the glass on the doors. Just a few cars behind their own, the big armed alien made its way toward them. Victus quickly ducked his head away from the glass when the alien started firing its powerful gun at him.

"DAMN IT! I DON'T WANT TO DEAL WITH THIS!" Victus yelled in frustration, he then yelled over the gunfire into the COMM, "BECK! CAN YOU DETACH ALL OF THE PASSENGER CARS BEHIND US?!"

Beck didn't say anything at first, but then Victus heard a hissing sound. Taking a chance, Victus peeked through the broken glass windows of the doors to see the remaining passenger cars falling behind on the track, the large alien yelling something incomprehensible. He also saw the alien's huge city pass the fallen cars.

Victus gave sigh of relief, and felt Jarek's talons on his shoulder. Looking over to Jarek, Victus could see him wearing a peculiar smile.

"It gets better," Jarek said as he activated his omni-tool and pressed a few buttons.

Victus turned back to see the monorail station that they were guarding so ferociously, explode spectacularly. No doubt killing all of the aliens inside. Jarek and the greenhorn cheered victoriously and even Beck was yelling out for celebration at the front of the train.

The cheering stopped when the city blew up.

Well, it didn't blow up as one might think, but suffice to say that when orbital fire started bombarding the city, it silenced the squad all the same. Piercing the clouds, great white streaks blasted into the center of the city, collapsing the cluster of buildings easily. The bombardments hit the ground with such force, that the squad felt the shockwave even from such a distance as they traveled further away from the city.

"How…how many of our soldiers were in that city?" the greenhorn asked with a stutter.

"A lot," Jarek answered morosely.

"Why did this happen?"

"Desolas, of course," Victus said.

Something in his tone must have given something away, because the greenhorn turned his way and said, "You knew this would happen?"

Victus nodded, "This has already happened to a city south of here, and I believed that this city was next," Victus gave out a scoff, "And I'm sure Desolas is planning on bombing the rest of them."

"Why would he send us down here if he was just going to bombard the planet?" Beck asked as she walked up to them.

"He sent us here to die," Victus said with absolute conviction, "luckily, I saw through his lie weeks ago when we touched down on this planet."

"What lie?" the greenhorn asked.

"You'll have to look no further than the thinkers to see Desolas's lie," Victus walked over to the fallen alien that had nearly killed him

"Now...," Victus blinked at the greenhorn, "what's your name?"

"Pal, my name is Pal Vakarian," he said.

"Now Pal, can you tell me why we're here on this planet?"

"To eradicate the infected aliens before they destroy this garden world," Pal answered.

"And why is this race infected with a virus?" Victus continued to lead everyone on.

"Desolas said that mercenaries dropped some kind of biological bomb."

Victus nodded slowly, then he grabbed the dead alien's arm and showed everyone the twelve-inch long claws that were covered by the metal armor.

"If this species has only been _recently_ contaminated with a virus, then why have they been able to design and manufacture armor around their mutations so effectively?" Victus asked, "And they seem to know the ins and outs of their bodies quite well for only _recently_ being horribly mutated, don't they?"

"So these aliens aren't the monsters that we thought they were," Jarek concluded.

Victus remembered his time in that city. He remembered good soldiers being literally beaten to death by the rampaging hordes of infected aliens. He remembered a good friend of his having his mandibles torn apart by a hooded alien. He remembered how that alien smiled. He remembered acid covered soldiers crying out in agony as aliens hiding in rooftops laughed. He remembered how he saw the aliens feast on their own dead.

"Well, …I wouldn't say _that_."

**Author's Note**

**Are humans monsters or not? You decide.**

**Anyways, sorry that this one took longer than most but I have a very good excuse…**

**I just bought Far Cry 3 and I just couldn't handle writing a story while simultaneously dealing with the sheer Vaasomeness of the game. But I just finished the game (twice) and I can write again.**

**So, in this chapter I decided to explain to you readers on how all of humanity became infected: lots and lots of MISSLES! And MAGICAL GREEN DUST!**

**I also tried my hand at writing some combat scenes, and I would really appreciate you telling me how I did those. **

**If you have some helpful critique, whether on the combat scenes or something else, please let me know in the comment section.**

**Also, some of you have been guessing on who was the mysterious species that helped humanity reach the stars.**

**And not one of you guessed correctly, HAH!**

**Although to be fair, I doubt anyone would have been able to guess correctly.**

**But, since I love all of you (no really), I'm going to give you a **_**small**_**hint****.**

**So if you don't want to risk any kind of spoilers, just scroll straight down to the omakes, there is enough room down there to not see the text.**

**Here it is…**

**SPOILERS!**

**SPOILERS! SPOILERS! **This story is a crossover of a Valve game and a Bioware game.** SPOLIERS! SPOILERS!**

**SPOILERS!**

**Omake 1**

Turning around he saw an alien standing in the middle of the passenger car. The alien was a female, its physical stature similar to an asari's. The armor that she was wearing covered her entire body, but it wasn't bulky, instead it was very formfitting, Victus would classify it as light armor. The color was entirely black, except for a single red stripe that went down one of her arms and the red and white alien symbols on her chest. The metal helmet looked like the alien's version of the archaic gas mask, with the air filter facing forward, and the large eye pieces that shrouded the wearer's face, except for the two glowing red eyes.

The gas masked individual tilted her head.

"…Are you my mommy?" it said

"Wuh…?"

**Omake 2**

**Well, since I already opened the can of Doctor Who worms…**

The gas masked alien slowly walked toward Victus and Beck.

She raised her claws, ready to strike.

Victus stepped forward confidently, pointed off into the distance, and said, "Go to your room!"

The alien paused, and tilted its head in a confused manner.

"Go to your room!" Victus commanded again.

The alien lowered its arm and took a more defeated pose as it stepped back and walked away in a dejected manner.

Victus smiled and turned back to Beck, who had a flabbergasted look to her.

With a smile, Victus said, "I sure am glad that worked. Those would have been _terrible_ last words."

**Don't forget to leave a comment or a review.**


	6. Chapter 6

Left 4 dead is owned by Valve.

Mass Effect is owned by Bioware.

First Infection

**Earth **

**2069 C.E.**

Space exploration.

Andrea never thought that those words would mean anything but a hopeless dream for her generation.

And yet here she was, sitting atop of a grassy hill with other spectators around her, eagerly looking out to the launch pad.

"Mom?"

Andrea looked over toward Mary, her fourteen year old daughter, a smoker like herself. She seemed bored.

"Yes, sweetie?" Andrea replied, already knowing full well what her daughter was going to ask.

"When is the spaceship going to launch?" Mary said in the same impatient manner that she used the last four times she asked the question.

Andrea sighed, "It will launch when it will launch, just be patient."

She and her family were lucky enough to find a spot under a shady tree to watch the event. Her husband, Mark, and her oldest child, Jason, both chargers, were sitting next to an ice chest. Her daughter was sitting at the edge of the shade, looking bored. And Andrea was leaning against the trunk of the tree, sitting at its base contently.

Squirming in her arms.

Andrea looked down at the sleeping form in her arms and smiled. And, of course, there was Thomas, her cute-as-a-button son, only two months old. Thomas looked like a normal human baby, he didn't have any kind of mutations, just like how Jason and Mary didn't have any when they were only a few months old. But, if Andrea looked closely, she could see that one of Thomas's arms was starting to gain a darker tone. Looks like Thomas was going to be a charger.

Looking across the valley around the launch pad, Andrea not only saw spectators, but also families like her own. Each one looking out to the launch pad eagerly, and marveling at how humanity, once again, was able to reach for the stars.

And it was all thanks to the Collective.

Andrea remembered the first time she was first contacted by the Collective.

It was nearly fifty years ago when it happened, at the time she was the governor of a small territory in the Rocky Mountains made up of a few towns. Of course, that's not how it started as. At first, when the pandemic ended and everyone had… turned, for a lack of a better word, she was just the person who gave a handful of people in a small town something to do, something to keep their minds off of terrible things. After a while, people started saying that she was their leader, then after she got the town that they lived in up and running, they asked her to be mayor. In time, they got into contact with other nearby towns and Andrea presided over trade agreements and other such things between the various towns. Eventually, Andrea had impressed enough people that they had made her governor of Rocky Roads (the name of the territory had started out as a joke to lift everyone's spirits, and it stuck).

It was two years after she had made governor, when the Collective came, arriving in helicopters.

People were skeptical about the 'Big Government' rolling in and taking over, some even believed that there wasn't a 'Big Government' anymore. Either way, people were paranoid. After years of having to deal with bandits and the occasional crazy, they had become wary around outsiders and the Collective was no exception to this.

But no one expected the Collective to take the action that it did.

The Collective had sent an agent of theirs to meet with her, whereupon the agent told her what was going to happen.

They were now a part of the Collective, and no, they did not have a choice in the matter. The Collective was going to help Rocky Roads build relay dishes and other such devices to help them communicate with other Collective territories. And the Collective was going to ask absolutely nothing from them.

It was the last statement that stopped Andrea from throwing the agent out of her house after he said that they were going to be forced to be a part of the Collective.

The agent explained to her that the Collective is just a _collection_ of various territories that is held together by the three factions of its government. Each territory is allowed to develop its own culture, its own government (provided that it doesn't abuse its citizens or is actively hostile toward the Collective), its own laws (provided that they follow the Collective's doctrine on human rights), and its own economy.

The agent told her that humanity had become too close-knit and independent to have any respect for a large government like the Collective, which is why the Collective allows its territories to have so much independence.

It also helps that the Collective doesn't impose a tax.

Instead, the Collective economy is based off of a ranking system of points. A territory receives points by contributing resources to the Collective, with the value of the resource determining the amount of points a territory receives. These points can be used by the territory to buy from the Collective's supply of products, such as computers, construction vehicles, food, and other such valuable goods. For some territories, the appeal to this system is that it is optional, and that there is no required monthly quota.

The agent then went on to explain the three divisions that made up the Collective's government.

The first division is the Administration, headed by the Administrator. This branch of the Collective is responsible for all administrative and governmental affairs, it conducts population censuses, record keeping, establishes educational standards, and other such things. It is the Administration's various offices that keep the Collective running in an efficient manner.

The second division is the Military, headed by the Grand Admiral. Their role is self-explanatory, but for clarification purposes: the Collective's military functions similarly to pre-pandemic militaries and is mostly used to fight against external threats and to quell internal uprisings.

The final division is the Research and Development division, headed by the Director. This division is made up of scientists and engineers that are overseen by the Advisors, and is responsible for the scientific and technological advancement of the human race. This includes: the construction of the hive cities (massively dense cities that, on top of being residential, hold huge quantities of commons and contains numerous factories), operate medical procedures for the ones that were disfigured by the Virus, maintain production of various technological constructs, and research into many fields of science.

The Administrator, the Grand Admiral, and the Director are the leaders of the Collective, and it is their decisions that have the largest impact on humanity. Andrea has only ever seen the Administrator and the Grand Admiral, and even then it was only on posters and on televised public events. The Administrator was very charismatic and had a sense of optimism about him, while the Grand Admiral was stern and military-like, as he should be.

The Director, on the other hand, was an enigma. No one, except for the individuals sitting high in the chain of command, knew who the Director was. Even the identity of the Advisors, the ones who headed each field of scientific study, were known to only specific groups of people.

Of course, the Director and the Advisors were responsible for ending the pandemic and systematically infecting the entirety of the human race, so it was probably for their own safety and to avoid controversy. Although, they do seem to be doing their best to not only restore humanity back to its original technological level, but to also supersede it.

The spaceship that was ready to launch into space and begin its journey to Mars validated this point.

Andrea looked down the hill to see a family of hunters lounging in the grass. The parents were curled up together, while their two kids played. They were playing tug-a-war, except instead of using their hands, they were using their teeth, and instead of using rope, they were instead using a severed arm, most likely from a common.

She frowned, the Director and the Advisors may have stopped the pandemic and helped humanity regain its science and technology, but it had come with a few obligatory repercussions, namely an increase in one's appetite, some animal-like mannerisms, and… _urges_.

Andrea looked at the child in her arms, to see that Thomas was awake. She smiled and let the long tongue that was growing out of the back of her shoulder hang over Thomas. She playfully wiggled the tongue above his face and Thomas giggled in enjoyment and reached out for the appendage.

Still, Andrea supposed that this was better than shooting herself in the head.

**Mindoir, Administrative tower**

**2165 C.E. (two years after humanity began conducting cultural diplomacy with the Citadel)**

Captain Ysin'Mal Vas Idenna felt like a pyjak in a varren's den.

Being in a room full of representatives of governments that thought very little of your species always unnerved him, especially with all the looks he was getting from the various ambassadors. The worst was from the batarian, who always looked at him with the same disgust that he would give to a dirty vagrant, which is probably what the batarian actually saw him as. There was also the volus ambassador that kept glancing nervously at him, as if he was afraid that the quarian was going to steal something from his pocket. Near the volus was the turian ambassador, who seemed confident that the quarian wouldn't try anything, so he only gave him a few suspicious glances. The salarian ambassador just gave him this indifferent stare every once in a while, she seemed to think that the quarian wasn't worth her time. The asari ambassador on the other hand…

"_What the…?"_ Captain Ysin'Mal thought bewilderedly.

The asari ambassador was sizing him up, and if that azure gaze was anything to go by, it wasn't for any kind of hostile reason. When she noticed that his gaze was on her, she gave him a most _peculiar_ kind of smile.

"_Oh, Keelah,"_ Ysin'Mal thought irritably.

Asari had the ability to mate with anyone, even species from different planets. With an ability like that, a particular trend had formed in asari society, which was to try and lay in bed with every species. A few asari actually went a step up and had a child with each one. Ysin'Mal didn't know if the ambassador went that far, but she was definitely a follower of the trend.

And with quarians being in such small numbers, and how most stay in the Migrant Fleet, quarians have become quite the… well…

Ysin'Mal was very glad he decided to stand in the back with the elcor and hanar ambassadors.

The elcor and hanar gave him the least condescending looks out of all the other races, of course that's mostly because they physically _can't._ The elcor are so monotonous that they actually need to say an emotive statement to clarify their tone. And the hanar don't have faces, speak in bioluminescence, and are practically polite to a fault. Although the hanar's drell bodyguard, who also acted as the representative for his species, did give him a suspicious look when he stood near them.

Ysin'Mal looked out the window of the building that they were in and saw the green rainforest that stretched out for miles, he still could not believe that he was here as an ambassador. The quarians haven't had an ambassador for anything for nearly two hundred years. At first, Ysin'Mal thought this was just some hilarious bureaucratic mix-up and that the humans thought that the quarians still had an embassy on the Citadel. But no, that wasn't it, the humans were just inviting every species that had a government, which was why there was no krogans or vorcha here. Apparently, the humans have undoubtedly become quite anxious to get their hands on advanced alien technology, and have requested ambassadors from most races to come over to one of their colony worlds and negotiate for trade agreements.

The invitation also stated that they would receive a tour of the human colony and be shown what kind of lifestyle they had, which was the _real_ reason why the ambassadors accepted the invitation. None of them had any plans to offer humanity any sort of technology, and they had a good reason for it.

They couldn't regulate the humans.

Because the Collective, the humans' government, never joined the Citadel, the Council was never able to convince them to sign the Treaty of Farixen, the legal document that limits the construction of dreadnoughts. Without that document, humanity had free reign to build as many of those massive ships as they wanted. The only thing that was stopping them from building so many was the understanding that they had with the Citadel. The Collective _understood_ that dreadnoughts were devastating machines of war that should be limited in number and they _understood_ that the Citadel government will go to great lengths to keep it this way.

All of which is a moot point, considering the Council still only has a rough estimate of the size of the Collective's navy.

So, the last thing the Citadel races were going to do was give the humans an equal footing in technology. But a look into human society, complete with all kinds of little tidbits that details their strengths and weaknesses? The Citadel races, and even the quarians, were definitely onboard for that.

The tour was conducted on a spaceship that hovered over the planet's settlements and factories while a virtual intelligence program gave descriptions and answered questions to the best of its ability. And through it, quite a few interesting things were learned about the humans.

For one, their civilizations were incredibly diverse. The humans' famous hive cites dotted the planet, of course, but there were also societies with various kinds of architecture being used, from simple mud huts in jungles, to grand stone cities built into the sides of mountains, to isolated towers that rose high out of the foliage. With the vast difference in design between the hive cities and everything else, it almost seemed like everything was built in different eras.

Also, humans loved islands; practically every island on the planet had some sort of settlement on it.

Another thing of note was their transportation system. Humans didn't really use any personal vehicles, most hover vehicles were designed to only carry cargo. Instead, humans got around either by way through their impressive stamina that lets them run for days effortlessly, or by way of their magnetic train system that covered the planet.

"If you can't get where you're going by either rails or your own two feet, then it's probably off world," the V.I. had said, quoting a no-doubt popular human saying in its sickeningly cheerful voice.

But the most noteworthy aspect of human society was their use of the commons. Everyone already knew that the humans' military used them as an inexhaustible supply of cannon fodder, but no one knew what their purpose was outside of the military, at least until the tour gave everyone a view inside one of their factories.

Manual labor.

Hundreds upon hundreds of commons lined up along conveyor belts, each one assembling parts to machinery and other products, each one mindlessly and efficiently acting like a cog in a machine.

The tour had ended at a governmental building that was located in the middle of a rain forest. The ambassadors were now waiting for a representative of humanity to meet with each one of them.

The door at the front of the room opened up, and Ysin'Mal saw a familiar figure wearing a translucent white robe enter the room.

Anita Goyle, humanity's ambassadorial representative.

Ysin'Mal never personally met her, but he has seen all the extranet vids that detailed her time on the Citadel.

"Welcome," she said politely, as she gave everyone a respectable bow, "it is great to see all of you again. And on behalf of the Collective, I thank you all for accepting our invitation."

She gave them all an absolutely glowing smile, "I hope we can all achieve something good from these meetings."

**Three hours later in Anita's office**

"Well, we definitely achieved _something_ today," Anita said to herself quietly, and then thought sadly, _"just not as much as I hoped for."_

None of the aliens had any plans to trade any kind of technology to humanity, apparently there was some kind of old law that stated that it was illegal for Citadel races to trade technology to non-Citadel races, and they didn't want to break this law.

Instead, each one kept trying to steer the conversation toward the usage of commons in factories, and how easily they were able to mass produce practically anything.

That was the only topic that got any results from the meetings. In return for non-technological resources, humanity would mass-produce all sorts of products for the aliens. For the most part, humanity would just mass produce clothing and other menial items for the aliens, and in return the aliens traded souvenir-like items and other such menial items to humanity.

It was all very mundane, but at least the Collective and the Citadel races were finally trading. Well, except for the batarians, their ambassador said that their race already had a means for cheap mass production, and that they didn't need anything from the humans. Instead, the batarian ambassador took up most of Anita's time with him with small talk, like discussing what Mindoir's weather was like.

Still, at least Anita was able to successfully conduct a meeting between all eight of the Citadel races.

Anita blinked.

Wait… eight? The Administrator sent her a message saying that she was going to meet with nine ambassadors, but didn't the Citadel only have eight races?

Anita quickly exited her office and headed toward the docking pad that was located on the roof of the tower.

**The roof of the Administrative tower**

Ysin'Mal was buckled into the back seat of the small transport craft that was going to drop off the ambassadors to a space station, where upon they would locate and enter their own starships to take them back to their homes. He had just buckled himself in when Anita Goyle entered the ship, she then proceeded to look up and down the aisle of seats that held the various ambassadors.

Ysin'Mal was wondering who Anita was looking for when it happened.

Anita's glowing yellow eyes met his own glowing eyes.

"_Oh,"_ Ysin'Mal thought as Anita headed straight toward him.

"Excuse me," Anita said politely, "but I don't think we've had a formal meeting yet."

**Author's Note**

**Hmmm, Advisors, that sounds familiar.**

**Ooh, just what do I have planned with the quarians? Tune in next time for: TALES OF INTEREST*cough*I mean*cough* FIRST INFECTION!**

**Also, the reason that humans love islands so much is because, well… you know how most zombie films always have the survivors trying to get to a deserted island? Well, I imagine that a whole lot of islands got occupied during the pandemic, so I thought that since people like familiarity, humans would have a habit of settling on islands.**

**Now to answer the commenters…**

**Onsholo: you like your turian dead? Even Garrus calibrating-like-a-boss Vakarian?**

**Thedoctor97: uh… I think you're confusing the omake with the spoiler, there are no time-lords in this story, it was just a joke.**

**Other Personalities: thank you. You were the ****ONLY**** person who gave an opinion on the combat scenes and I appreciate it. As for the rest of you reviewers, I am disappoint. I asked you all to give me your opinions. And what did you guys do? You kept it to yourself, you greedy #$%! **

**Badak: wow… really? I feel so warm and fuzzy inside now that I know that I've blown your expectations. Thank you.**

**Omake**

Still, at least Anita was able to successfully conduct a meeting between all eight of the Citadel races.

Anita blinked.

Wait… eight? The Administrator sent her a message saying that she was going to meet with nine ambassadors, but didn't the Citadel only have eight races?

"Count!" Anita yelled.

Suddenly, a purple vampire, who's bottom half was obscured from view by Anita's desk, appeared out of nowhere.

"Count, can you tell me how many ambassadors there were?" Anita asked urgently.

The Count held up nine purple fingers and said, "Nine! Nine ambassadors! AH-AH-AH!"

Anita slowly and dramatically took off her glasses, which she was totally wearing this whole time, to accentuate the point of just how dramatic this moment was.

"…My God," Anita said in awe.

**Don't forget to leave a comment and a review. And remember, I'll love you more if you make the reviews longer.**


	7. Chapter 7

Left 4 dead is owned by Valve.

Mass Effect is owned by Bioware.

Warning: this story is rated M for a reason.

First Infection

**Khar'shan**

The room was completely dark, except for a single light that shined on the room's lone occupant: a very well dressed batarian.

The batarian had a wonderful smile on his face as he patiently waited at the table. He had just had one of the most interesting days in a long time.

Suddenly, a loud clanging sound had emerged from the darkness of the room. It sounded as if a metal door had been slammed open. The batarian didn't react in any way, instead he just kept smiling pleasantly. After a moment of silence though, the batarian calmly raised his hand to his lavish robe, picked out a speck of dirt, and laid it on the table. Except, the speck of dirt wasn't actually a speck of dirt, but an advanced and miniscule camera that had been camouflaged on his robe.

"Ambassador," a neutrally synthesized voice came out of the darkness, "why don't you tell us about your tour of the human colonies of Mindoir?"

The batarian ambassador's smile only grew bigger.

**Mindoir, Anita's office in the Administrative tower**

**2165 C.E.**

"So," Anita said as she sat behind her desk, "how about an introduction? My name is Anita Goyle."

Anita's office was luxurious; the grand mahogany desk, the velvet carpet, and the balcony behind Anita that looked out over the green jungle all accentuated this point.

"My name is Ysin'Mal vas Idenna and I represent the quarian race," Ysin'Mal answered, "But you can call me Captain Mal, if you wish."

"Alright, "Anita smiled, "so, Captain Mal, are the quarians interested in trading with us humans?"

"We are definitely… _intrigued _at the prospect."

"Well, as you know, we are very capable of mass producing items," Anita said, "is there anything that you're interested in, and if so, what will the quarians trade to us humans in return?"

Captain Mal knew what to ask for. He knew that what he was going to ask for, the quarians _will_ get. Because he knew just what kind of position he was in. He immediately knew it when he saw Anita's expression each and every time the other ambassadors left her office. He had tried to avoid this meeting, so he could run his idea by the Conclave first, but…

Since he was here already.

"The quarians are willing to trade some of our advanced technology."

Anita's eyebrows shot up.

Captain Mal smiled unnoticeably behind his mask.

Anita was staring at Captain Mal for an amount of time that some would consider rude, but Anita quickly collected herself and said, "But isn't that against Citadel law?"

"The quarians are not a part of the Citadel government, so we don't have to follow that law."

Anita blinked at that, "I thought us humans were the only race to deny the invitation into the Citadel government?"

"You are," Captain Mal answered, "just as us quarians are the only race to be kicked out of the Citadel."

She really wanted to ask what caused that, but the Collective desperately needed that technology and the phrase: 'don't look a gift horse in the mouth' sprung up in her mind. Instead she asked a much more important question.

"What is it that the quarians want in return?"

Captain Ysin'Mal vas Idenna has been around. During his pilgrimage, he practically explored the entirety of the galaxy. From the Citadel to Omega, from Palaven to Thessia, he's been there. He's seen all the different species and met all kinds of people. He knows how the galaxy works, and he knows what the quarians need.

"We want an alliance."

The quarians needed friends.

**Mindoir, location: unknown **

**2167 C.E.**

It's been two years.

Two _long_ years in the green jungle.

Of course, to an asari, two years wasn't that long.

But, on a planet filled with _humans_…

To Elita, those two years felt like twenty.

Human planets were off-limits to all species, except for humans, of course. This rule was enforced by both the Citadel and the Collective, because both saw that human planets were too dangerous for non-human civilians, on account that these planets were occupied by humans.

Although as one of the Shadow Broker's top informant agents, Elita was anything but a civilian. As an ex-commando, Elita was trained heavily in guerilla warfare, so this green jungle was, as the humans say in their movies, a walk in the park.

Two years ago, ambassadors of various races were invited to Mindoir for a tour of human society. Each ambassador had arrived in a starship that was owned by their own race. The asari ambassador had arrived in a cruiser.

And magnetically locked to the underside of that cruiser was Elita's stealth ship.

Elita's stealth ship was now on the human planet and completely covered in the green foliage that made up the jungles of MIndoir. The ship served as Elita's base of operations and as her home.

As an agent of the Shadow Broker, her mission was the retrieval of any and all high-demand information, and no information had a higher demand than the one's pertaining to the humans. With the humans being so isolated from the rest of the galaxy, gaining any kind of information about them was difficult, after all, it's not like an alien spy could just blend into human society.

Instead, Elita used a different tactic.

The jungle that Elita had hid her ship in was home to over half-a-dozen small settlements, along with a hive city that was just a few miles north of the jungle. As such, the jungle was quite populated with the humans.

And Elita had hidden over hundreds of cameras in the jungle.

_"We satiate these urges by going out in nature to hunt and kill,"_ Zoey had said on the interview.

Humans were animals, and as such Elita was going to learn from the humans the same way a person learns from an animal.

Not by talking to them, but by observing them.

**The Two Sides of Humanity**

The hunter was a male and, more interesting, seemed to be educated.

Elita had been tracking this hunter through the jungle with her cameras, while she herself was sitting in a room in her ship that was filled with over a dozen vid screens. Sipping some hot thessian tea, Elita tapped a command on her console and the camera zoomed in on the hunter. This hunter had been jumping across the branches of the jungle when Elita noticed him on one of her cameras. After a while of observing, the hunter had stopped leaping around the jungle and had landed in a clearing, where upon he started pacing around it and started talking to himself. Unfortunately, the hunter was talking too quietly, so only the most advanced and expensive cameras could record his mumblings.

Elita calmly reached over and a turned a dial on the console. She smiled as the hunter's voice came out of her sound speakers.

"No, no, …damn it!" the hunter said frustratingly. The male hunter seemed to be dressed appropriately for the steaming heat of the jungle. He was wearing brown shorts and a green thin shirt that was sleeveless and had red zigzagging stripes for style. Attached to the back of the shirt seemed to be some kind of detachable hood, it was currently pulled back off his head, instead the hunter covered up its eyes with a special type of dark eyeglasses that seemed to be designed to reduce the intensity of this star's rays of light. Without the hood, Elita could see that the hunter had brown hair and a youthful face. The hunter's feet were also bare, which showcased that the hunter's toes ended in sharp claws just like his hands.

"Which was first?" the hunter asked himself, "the Greeks? …No, no, they just had the most perverted stories, …barring the Japanese of course, heh," he gave out a quiet laugh, "no, now who had the first?" the hunter was quiet for a few moments before he snapped his fingers, "the Mesopotamians! _They_ were the ones who wrote the first works of literature."

The hunter was smiling now, revealing sharp teeth, "Ha, ha, the Ancient History Final is going to be easy," he said proudly, but then his posture seemed to deflate, "or… wait, was this for the Literary History Final instead? Crap, I knew I shouldn't have taken those two classes in the same semester, now I'm getting them mixed up. Damn it, it's just so hard to think right now while-" His musings were interrupted when he heard the bushes next to him ruffle.

The hunter instantly stopped talking and immediately leaped onto the tree branch that hanged over the ruffling bushes. The hunter spent half a second of time to glance down and examine what he was looking at. Another half second later and the hunter leaped down into the foliage, his arms stretched forward and a loud shriek escaped his mouth.

The foliage thrashed around wildly as the shrieks of the hunter and the squealing of the mysterious beast escaped its grasp.

Suddenly, a furred animal burst out of the foliage and into the clearing with the hunter clawing on its back. The furry animal had small hooves, a belly that was low to the ground, and a snout with tusks at the end. Her computer identified the animal to be a boar, a mammal that was native to the humans' home world, as was seen in their movies.

The boar was covered in bleeding scratches, no doubt from the hunter on top of it. Thrashing around in a berserk manner, the boar was desperately trying to get the hunter off of it, but to no success, as the hunter was able to get his hands around the boar's neck. Using his sharp claws, the hunter pierced the boar's neck and ripped out its throat. The boar fell on its side as it squirmed in pain, dying, a pool of blood soaking the leaves and grass of the jungle floor.

The hunter grabbed the leg of the boar and dragged it into the shade of a tree. Taking off his dark eyeglasses to reveal his completely black eyes, the hunter set the glasses on the ground, ripped open the boar's stomach, and practically dived headfirst into the boar's body.

He feasted on his kill with complete animalistic desire. Not even bothering to skin and clean the boar, or even cook it, the hunter ate the corpse raw. He chewed up the organs, he split open the bones to get the marrow, and he drank the red blood that poured out of the boar like fountains.

The hunter was enjoying his meal immensely when he suddenly stopped. Bringing his head out of the boar's body, the hunter's head was spotted with the boar's blood, with his mouth, lower jaw, and his neck being entirely covered in it. Hanging from the hunter's mouth was a segment of the boar's intestines, which the hunter quickly chewed up and swallowed, not caring about its contents.

Crouched over his kill, the hunter quickly scanned the tree line and foliage that surrounded the clearing, until finally focusing on one direction. The hunter crouched lower, readying to pounce as he let a low menacing growl escape from his throat.

At the end of the clearing, perched on a tree's branch, was a huntress, a female hunter. Like the male hunter, her clawed feet were bare and she was wearing shorts. The difference was that her blue shorts were much shorter, instead of stretching down to just above the knees, like the male's, her pants stretched down to just below the hips. She was wearing a hooded button-up flannel shirt. Being mindful of the jungle's heat, only a single button was being used to cover her chest, leaving the flaps of the shirt to sway in the wind and expose her midsection. Where an asari would have a flat stomach, the huntress had finely toned abs. The huntress was wearing the hood, so her eyes and the upper portion of her face was obscured from view, although her brunette hair was long enough to be seen as it stretched down just past her shoulders and she seemed to be as old as the male hunter.

The most noteworthy aspect of the huntress was that, like the male, her lower face was completely drenched in red blood, which dribbled down the rest of her body. Slung over her back was a sack that she held onto by a thin rope with her blood covered hands. The sack was dripping and had animal limbs protruding from the top.

The huntress stared.

The hunter stared back.

The huntress licked her blood lathered lips.

The hunter growled and placed his bloody hands over the corpse of the boar, as if saying that this was his kill.

She smirked at that and unslung the sack from her back and hanged it on the branch. She then did something that Elita didn't expect.

She brought her hand up to her shirt and undid the button to reveal her bare breasts. The huntress then leaped behind the trunk of the tree that she was perched in and promptly disappeared.

The hunter raised his head, caught off guard at the impromptu display. He quickly gathered his wits and started scanning the foliage for any sign of movement. Nearly a minute went by when it happened, as the hunter consistently turned his head around to catch any glimpse of the huntress, while staying near the corpse of the boar to protect his kill, an assailant from behind pounced on his back and pinned him to the ground. Lying on his stomach, the hunter struggled fiercely to get the attacker off of his back.

The hunter stopped struggling when the huntress pinning him down licked the back of his ear. The huntress's hot breath on the back of the hunter's neck calmed him down even more.

The huntress allowed the now-calm hunter to flip over onto his back. From his new position, he gazed up at the huntress sitting on his lap. Perky breasts covered red with the blood that had dribbled down from her mouth and a bloody smile of a predator greeted him. For a few moments, the hunter and huntress only stared at each other.

Then the hunter gave a small, almost unnoticeable nod, bared his teeth at her, and growled.

The smiling huntress responded back with a purr.

Elita stared wide-eyed at the vid screen, her thessian tea set aside, cold and forgotten.

Summary: _By the Goddess! What did I just watch? First week with all of the cameras set up and this is the first interesting thing I record? I think I am going to hate this planet. Anyways, this recording shows just how much truth Zoey's statement has. There really are two sides to humanity. One moment the male human is reviewing history topics for some kind of test, and the next he's attacking an animal like he's a varren, …and then rutting like one._

Valuable information gained #1: _Zoey's two sides of humanity hypothesis: confirmed._

#2: _Humanity's appetite. It seems like humans do not have a problem with eating raw meat from a fresh kill and don't seem to care if the entrails are filled with crap or not. The size of humanity's appetite needs to be brought up too. I swear if that huntress hadn't interrupted his meal, he might have finished off that entire boar in just a few hours, because I did not see any signs of him stopping._

#3: _Humanity's sexual behavior. The humans seem to be much more sexually active than most other species, even mine, which is a statement in of itself. The hunter and huntress don't even know each other. At first, I thought that they were just mates and that this was just really…_interesting_ foreplay. But nope, after everything was …finished they untangled themselves and introduced themselves to each other. This was the first time they ever met each other and the first thing they do is rut like varren? Do all humans always conduct sexual activity so casually? Or is this behavior attributed only to the hunter strain of the Virus? More information is required._

_Update__: Nope, it is not just the hunters. I am pretty sure that the fact that the Virus destroys all types of diseases in the human body, even the sexually transmitted ones, is a contributing factor, but there is still the risk of pregnancy to consider. A species that ovulates every few weeks should naturally be much more cautious._

_Update:__ Had a thought. It's only confirmed that the commons ovulate every few weeks, and the commons only have a natural lifespan of thirty years, while the special infected humans are living past a hundred years of age easily. Perhaps the special infected have a much slower ovulation cycle?_

#4: _Humans like it aggressive. _

Value of information: _moderately high._

**Human-Quarian Alliance**

Setting up cameras all around the jungle was effective, if not costly, but it wasn't Elita's only trick. Before she even landed on the planet, Elita was able to plant a miniscule bug on the asari ambassador's dress. Elita was able to see everything that the ambassador saw on the tour and luckily for Enita, the asari ambassador was the first one to enter Goyle's office. Elita took the chance to activate a program of the bug which allowed it to detach from the ambassador's dress, letting it fall in Goyle's office. With the bug hidden in the office, Elita was able to spy on all of the meetings between the ambassadors.

Nothing particularly valuable was recorded from any of the meetings, at least until the quarian entered the office.

The humans were getting their technology and the quarians were getting a planet. Humans got omni-tools, better weapon designs, and other such devices, while the quarians finally got a permanent place to peacefully make berth.

Of course, not everything was going great for this alliance. The humans were finally getting alien tech, but they weren't getting anything that would improve their starships, apparently the quarians were quite protective of their advanced starship tech.

This alliance was going to be nothing like the Citadel government. With the humans always infected with a very dangerous virus and the quarians having an extremely weak immune system, the two species will have very little to no contact with each other. This alliance was basically a trade agreement and a security treaty.

For now.

Value of information: _very high._

**Advisors**

Value of information: _highest priority._

For over two years, Elita's observations have garnered her plenty of information about the humans. Information that she had sent off to the Shadow Broker. Information that was going to make her very rich once she got off this planet.

She just had one last assignment: discover the identity of an Advisor and find out what species it is.

Practically every high-end governmental agent and spy operative suspected that humanity had help reaching the stars. After all, how could a species that can barely suppress its urges to kill be able to recover from the collapse of civilization, let alone achieving spaceflight? So it's only logical to assume that the humans had help, and the Shadow Broker believed that it was the leaders of the Research and Development division of the Collective government: the Director and the Advisors.

They were the ones who ended the Pandemic, and they were the ones who discovered the prothean ruins on a nearby planet.

And not one person knew who they were.

But Elita knew where one was.

Currently, Elita was lying prone on top of a grassy hill. She was wearing the asari equivalent of a ghillie suit, completely covered in twigs and leaves she blended into her environment easily. Under the camo suit, Elita was wearing the distinctive brown uniform that asari commandos were known to wear. Strapped to her waist was a heavy pistol with a suppressor attached to the nozzle. On her back, under the camo suit, was an auto-shotgun and a short burst assault rifle with a suppressor attached to it. Elita also had a semi-automatic sniper rifle with a suppressor in her hands.

Suppressors were very important when fighting humans.

Hearing a groan behind her, Elita unstrapped the pistol from her waist, twisted around, and silently shot the common that was shambling around her in the head. The dead common fell down on the ground and started rolling down to the base of the hill where a pile of common corpses were growing. Luckily for Elita, piles like those were a common sight on human planets, special infected humans seem to enjoy the sight of corpses falling down hills and had created a few games from it. So Elita didn't have to worry about attracting attention by killing commons because the other humans seem to enjoy doing it.

Elita went back to looking down the scope of her rifle. The building that she was scoping out was a four-story Collective owned science lab that specialized in botany, which was why the lab was isolated away from settlements and located right next to the jungle that Elita was hiding in. Currently, an Advisor was visiting the lab to look over some type of recent discovery that the scientists had made. With an Advisor so close to her position, Elita may never get an opportunity like this again.

The only problem was the military personal located around the lab.

A dozen special infected soldiers with nearly forty military outfitted commons were guarding the lab. No doubt the presence of an Advisor warranted the number of soldiers, but that fact didn't stop Elita from silently cursing under her breath.

It would no doubt be difficult, but Elita was confident that she could take them all out.

Elita looked through the scope of her sniper rifle to see a common that was strapped with explosives. She took a deep breath, steadied her aim, and pulled the trigger. The mass accelerated particle launched out of the nozzle of the rifle, the suppressor silencing its exit, it flew across the field, and whizzed straight past the explosively armed common and into the circuit box that was connected to the building's siren. The resulting hit activated the siren's dreadful wail, which was followed by the screams of commons from the surrounding area.

Some human buildings were outfitted with a siren that was used to gather all of the area's commons to a single point. When enough commons were gathered the humans would turn off the siren, where upon the commons would cease their frenzy, and the occupants of the building would now have an army of cannon fodder protecting them.

Elita crawled back from the building to hide behind the hill that she was on. She quickly strapped her sniper rifle to her back under her camo suit, effectively hiding it. Looking down the hill opposite of the building, Elita saw dozens of commons franticly running up the hill where she was. As they got closer, Elita could practically hear the sound of her heartbeat racing. It was only until the first few commons ran past her, completely ignorant of her presence, did she let out a breath of relief.

Acting quickly, Elita stood up and sprinted as fast as she could with the commons. Commons weren't exactly the cleanest of aliens, and with Elita wearing her camo suit, she practically blended in with the horde.

While a few special infected soldiers tried to turn off the siren, the rest were scanning the horizon trying to find the perpetrator.

Elita ran right past them and straight into the building with nary a glance from them.

"_I guess they never expected someone to run with the horde of crazies,"_ Elita thought smugly. She then took out her assault rifle and crouched low to start her silent trek through the building to find the Advisor.

Luck was on Elita's side, as the very first place she checked contained the Advisor.

The basement was filled with all types of plants that were stacked in neat rows. On the far end wall of the basement was a large dashboard that was connected to a huge holographic screen that displayed all sorts of data. Besides that, the room was completely bare of anything or anyone.

Elita silently walked up to the dashboard and analyzed the contents of the holographic screen. Most of the information that was displayed was trivial plant data, but there was a single data point that caught her interest.

"_Advisor pod connected securely,"_ it read.

Elita blinked at that, it was then that she noticed the large black cable that was connected to the dashboard. Her gaze followed along the large cable as it trailed across the room to the corner of the wall behind her, where upon the cable climbed up the wall to connect to…

Elita's jaw dropped in surprise.

Right where two of the walls and the roof met was a huge cocoon-like pod. The large metal construct was black and the retractable ridges bulged forward menacingly. The pod was connected with various large cables that spread out around the walls to various points in the building, making it look somewhat like a spider web.

Elita pressed a command on the dashboard.

"_Opening Advisor pod,"_

**Author's Note**

**Sorry this chapter took a bit longer than usual, private matters, nothing to worry about.**

**Anyways, next chapter might take a bit longer too, but this reason is much better than the last one.**

**I'm going to Comic-Con! Woohoo!**

**Now, let's answer some comments…**

**Other Personalities: Made your review longer, eh? I guess I love you more now. Thank you.**

**Lay Down Hunter: I know what you mean about the quarians being a bit cliché, but don't worry the humans and quarians aren't going to be as buddy-buddy as you might think they are. Oh, by the way, remember an earlier comment where you voiced displeasure at zombie sex? Well… it's probably too late to warn you about this chapter.**

**Kriegmarine: Thanks for the compliment. As for accepting ideas, I am always willing to listen to anyone's idea if they post it in the comment section. Although be warned, as I already have the ending and various other plot points in the story planned out, but don't be discouraged, if I like your idea and decide to use it in my story I'll be sure to give you credit.**

**Barber477: I agree, I should have done the tour better, thanks for critique.**

**Omake 1**

Hearing a groan behind her, Elita unstrapped the pistol from her waist, twisted around, and silently shot the common that was shambling around her in the head. The dead common fell down on the ground and started rolling down to the base of the hill where a pile of common corpses were growing. Luckily for Elita, piles like those were a common sight on human planets.

Heh, heh, get it? A _common_ sight. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

…Oh, #$% you, I'm funny!

**Omake 2**

Then the hunter gave a small, almost unnoticeable nod, bared his teeth at her, and growled.

The smiling huntress responded back with a purr.

Elita stared wide-eyed at the vid screen, her thessian tea set aside, cold and forgotten.

It was then she realized just how much free porn xenobiologists got on a daily basis.

**Omake 3**

Captain Ysin'Mal vas Idenna has been around. During his pilgrimage, he practically explored the entirety of the galaxy. From the Citadel to Omega, from Palaven to Thessia, he's been there. He's seen all the different species and met all kinds of people. He knows how the galaxy works, and he knows what the quarians need.

"We want an alliance."

The quarians needed friends.

Suddenly, a purple unicorn crashed through the walls of the office, which through the magic of Michael Baydom (that Hasbro totally has access to), caused ten explosions simultaneously in the most awesomest way possible.

"FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC, MOTHERBUCKER!"

**Omake 4**

"It was great doing business with you, Captain Mal," Anita Goyle said.

"My pleasure," Captain Mal said, "Now, if you would please excuse me, I have to return to my crew, they're quite a wacky bunch. Like for example, my pilot is always playing with toy animals that are extinct. I honestly don't see what my second-in-command sees in him. My engineer is just a ray of sunshine though, which is nice, not like my ex-mercenary, he's a real pain in the ass. At least he isn't spewing religion though, but I guess that's what I get for inviting a priest onto my ship. But at least he's not dangerous, no, that would be the doctor's sister. Keelah, I'm always afraid that she's going to somehow magically blow up the ship. But the worst, the absolute worst, is the ship's prostitute, of course she calls herself a Companion, like a name makes any real difference, hah."

Anita Goyle openly gaped at Captain Mal.

Captain Mal turned toward the audience, completely obliterating the fourth wall in the process, "Did you get that audience?" he asked in a condescending manner, "I'm making a Firefly reference, because you know, Bioware named me: Captain Ysin'Mal vas Idenna. Do you get it?"

**Don't forget to leave a comment and a review. And remember, I'll love you more if you make the reviews longer.**


	8. Chapter 8

Left 4 dead is owned by Valve.

Mass Effect is owned by Bioware.

First Infection

**Mindoir, botany lab**

**1267 C.E.**

"_Opening Advisor pod,"_

The synthesized voice coming from the dashboard was neutral and emotionless, and entirely ignored by Elita. Instead, her attention was completely focused on the black metal Advisor pod that hugged the corner of the wall like a spider. The basement was filled with the sound of hissing as steam was released from the pod's crevices. The two columns of metal ridges that bulged forward were pulled to the side to reveal the contents and the single inhabitant that occupied its interior. With loud metal clanks, the bulging ridges of the pod proceeded to recede up into each other, until finally the last ridge disappeared into the roof of the pod.

Elita slowly walked away from the dashboard and through the aisles of plants to get a better view of the inside of the pod.

The interior of the pod was absolutely filled with all kinds of small pinpoint dots of various colors that shined brightly to convey their status. The pod also contained a number of wires and circuitry that connected to the center mass of the pod. And located in that center mass was…

An Advisor.

One of the individuals belonging to a group who were directly involved in many of the major events that shaped humanity. It was they who ended the pandemic. It was they who brought humanity to the dark reaches of space. They were the ones who changed the face of humanity forever. They are the ones who keep humanity well stocked with their technological products. They were the ones who created the massive hive cities. They are the ones responsible for preserving humanity's research into each field of science. The Advisors were truly the pathfinders of humanity's destiny.

It was then when the single pathfinder of humanity's destiny noticed Elita from inside the pod.

"AUUUGH!" the Advisor screamed out in shock.

"Ah!" Elita responded, as she took a step back in surprise, while the Advisor closely examined her.

"Oh God, you look terrible. You look like a, like a, …uh, like a swamp monster. Which is just bloody impossible considering the fact that the nearest swamp is over a hundred miles away, so you must be a _really_ determined swamp tourist, …or you're half tree," the Advisor said," Oh! Are you the discovery? The discovery that these botanists have been telling me about? Because if you are, then I've just got to say that… this, this is… this is just bloody amazing. I _never_ expected that I would be talking to tree people, well… actually I have talked to tree people before, but they weren't anything like you, they were more of tree-_lovers_ than anything else. Hey! Is that how you were made? Between a tree and a tree lover? Wow, how would that even work…?"

Elita looked down at herself. Her camo-suit covered her body entirely, completely obscuring her identity as an asari. A fact that she could use to her advantage.

"Um, …no, I'm just a …hunter in camouflage," Elita replied.

"Oh, …well that's disappointing," the Advisor replied downtrodden, but then the Advisor spoke up franticly, "Oh-but-that's-not-to-say-that-you're-a-disappoint ment! Uh, heh, heh, I'm sure that under all those disgusting twigs, leaves, and mud, you are a beautiful and passionate woman who has never been a disappointment in the eyes of any of your relatives. I'm just saying, that meeting the offspring of a tree and a human would have completely justified this trip inside this pod," the Advisor then …gestured to the pod it was in, "I mean… just look at it. It's bloody ridicules! Metal ridges? Why would anyone make it look so threatening?"

The Advisor had a very strange accent, it was both pompous yet apologetic at the same time. The voice was nothing like how Elita imagined the Advisor's voice would sound like. But, no matter how surprising the Advisor's voice was, it was nothing compared to the surprise of the Advisor's appearance.

"Um, excuse me," Elita said cautiously, "But, are you… an Advisor?"

"Hmm? Oh, yes! I am, in fact, an Advisor core," the confirmed Advisor answered smugly, "quite a prestigious one, if I do say so myself. After all, who doesn't know of the Advisor that helped end the terrible pandemic? Well, actually there are the people who don't have a high enough clearance to know about me, which _do_ take up a large percentage of that statistic. But, don't let that take away from the fact that you are in the presence of someone _highly_ important."

Elita took a step back to thoroughly examine the Advisor.

The first word that came to Elita's mind that summed up the Advisor's appearance was: …small.

The Advisor was much smaller than she expected one to be. The most comparable size would be that of a large ball used for sports. The Advisor's body was basically a grey metallic sphere. In the center of the Advisor's body was a blue glowing optical unit that acted as its eye. Above and below the eye were two metal handles that could be used to grip the Advisor, indicating that the Advisor's body was portable. What was interesting about the Advisor's body was that the segmented metal parts of its body could move around to convey emotion, similar to a face.

The Advisor's blue glowing eye stared at Elita, "Okay, it's obvious by your stunned silence that you've never met me. Don't worry, I've gotten used to it, it is a very common reaction in my presence. Here, I'll introduce myself…" The Advisor made a few chortled sounds of it clearing its nonexistent throat.

"My name is Wheatley."

Elita couldn't believe it.

The alien race that had uplifted humanity from the pits of their own destruction, were not aliens…

But, artificial intelligence programs.

The edges of Elita's mouth curved upward in a smile.

"Perfect," Elita said," this makes my job much easier."

The Advisor, Wheatley, scrunched up his metallic plates in confusion, "What job?" Wheatley suddenly turned to a blinking yellow light in his pod, after staring at it for a few seconds Wheatley turned back toward Elita, "And why is it that my pod is indicating that there is a biotic in this room? Humans can't become biotics-WOAH!"

Elita wrapped herself in a blue aura of biotic power and lifted herself off the ground and floated onto the suspended pod. Gripping the edges of the pod, Elita wrapped her hand around the metal handle above Wheatley's eye.

"NO-NO-NO-NO, DON'T PULL ME OUT OF THE-OOOUCH!" Wheatley yelled out in panic, before screaming in pain as he was forcefully pulled out of the socket that he was connected to in the pod, electrical sparks flying out. The entire building was then filled with spinning red strobe lights as an alarm wailed out loudly, alerting everyone that something had gone wrong. Elita jumped off of the pod with Wheatley in her grip and proceeded to exit the basement.

"HELP, SOMEONE HELP! I'M BEING WHEATLEYNAPPED!" Wheatley screamed out desperately before turning toward his capturer.

"Look, you're making a _huge_ mistake," Wheatley warned as he was carried off down the hallways, "This entire building is completely surrounded by highly-trained soldiers that are going to kill you. Don't you understand? They're _humans_, the most dangerous beings in the galaxy."

Elita ignored him as she hurried through the hallways and laboratories of the first floor. With the red lights and the siren alerting everyone, along with Wheatley yelling at the top of his max volume output, broadcasting her location to everyone, stealth was no longer an option.

It was when she entered her third laboratory when she encountered her first form of resistance. She had closed the doors behind her and was quite startled when she heard dozens of loud thumps hit the doors behind her. Turning back, Elita found a large number of commons beating against the door franticly, already they had broken the glass windows and it wouldn't be long before the door shattered from their collective weight.

"AHA!" Wheatley laughed proudly, "What are you going to do now? Look at all of them, there is no way that you can fend them all off!"

Elita sighed in annoyance and brought up a surprised Wheatley to her face.

"I have been on this planet for two years," Elita's tone was filled with barely constrained anger, "And if there is anything that I learned about the humans, it is that they are the most disgusting creatures I have ever seen. When they are not vomiting or spitting bile, they are fucking each other or killing everything in sight. The humans are disgusting monsters."

Elita's voice suddenly took a calmer tone, "And if you think that all of those mutations make humans the most dangerous combatants in the galaxy, then you're wrong, because the race with the most formidable warriors in the galaxy is…"

Elita pulled off the headpiece to her camo-suit to reveal her bright blue face.

"Mine," Elita finished. She then dropped Wheatley on the ground, making a loud clanging sound as his metal body hit the ground. She then unslung her auto-shotgun from her back and pointed it at the door. Her body was then covered in a blue aura as her biotic Barriers protected her.

Suddenly, a deep wail was heard behind the doors. A moment later, both of the doors were swung open as a charger soldier pummeled through the doors and the commons in its way. Acting quickly, Elita swung her biotically charged arm upward toward the charger. The soldier was Pulled up into the air, its momentum causing it to sail right over Elita's head and straight into the wall behind her, where it stayed suspended.

Not wasting a moment's notice, Elita Pushed the table in front her, causing it to fly toward the commons speedily. The large table slammed forcefully into the commons and blocked the entrance. Spinning on her heel, Elita raised her shotgun toward the floating charger and proceeded to unload her gun into his body. The charger stopped convulsing after the fourth buckshot.

Quickly turning around, Elita found that the commons had already bypassed the table with their numbered might. Stretching her arm forward, Elita released a singularity at the entrance of the laboratory. Immediately, commons and all kinds of lab items were pulled into orbit around the singularity. With the commons and items rapidly spinning at the lab's entrance, the human soldiers from behind were unable to enter the laboratory until the singularity disappeared.

With the humans stalled for a few minutes, Elita picked up Wheatley and fled the scene as fast as she could to get to her destination.

Stairs were an uncommon sight on human planets, as most humans just prefer to climb up the walls, but there were still stairs being built to make carrying material up buildings easier.

As Elita ran up the spiral staircase, Wheatley urgently asked her where she was going.

"WAIT, WAIT, WHERE ARE YOU GOING?! THERE'S NO EXIT UP THERE?!" Wheatley yelled frantically.

"No, but there is the spacecraft on the roof that transported you here," Elita answered.

Wheatley froze, "…Oh, right. …Wait! I just remembered that the craft has absolutely no gas in it. I remember the pilot saying how he was going to get gas, but he decided against it because he said: _'You never know when an alien is going to kidnap you and commandeer my ship.'_ At the time, it didn't make any sense, but now it does. So you should definitely try and find some other means of escape, because that aircraft is going to be a no-go."

Elita ignored the babbling AI as she kicked open the door to the roof, revealing a cargo ship of the same model that landed on the Citadel all those years ago. With a smile on her face, Elita quickly sprinted toward the spacecraft as fast as she could.

Her sprint was only interrupted by a hunter that leapt onto the roof of the building from the ground. She easily Pushed the hunter off of the roof while he was in mid-leap and proceeded up the ramp to the cargo hold of the ship. Slamming a fist on the large green button on a wall of the cargo hold, the ramp slowly started rising up to close off the ship from the outside.

Hearing loud wailing sounds, Elita looked out to see a hundred commons franticly climbing over the building to rush her. Pulling out her assault rifle, Elita released short bursts of fire onto the commons, felling each one every other second. When the ramp finally closed, Elita ran as fast as she could to the cockpit to input coordinates for the autopilot.

Outside of the cargo ship, soldiers watched on silently as the spacecraft rose off the roof and flew out over the jungle.

**Twenty-five minutes later**

"Alright, so here's an idea: how about… you turn this ship around and take me back to the labs, and I bet that everyone would be so thankful that you brought me back, that they would forget this _entire_ incident and you could just walk away with nothing but a slap on the wrist. In fact, I bet they would even give you a reward, like a …uh, a medal or… uh… or something. I'm sure you would get _something _for bringing me back, because right now everyone is going, _'Oh gosh, do you know who I miss? That Wheatley fella, now he was someone worth hanging out with. It's just too bad that he was taken from us,' _and then you'd come along and be like, _'Hey everyone, guess who I brought back,'_ and then they would be like, _'Oh, wow! You brought Wheatley back to us, it just goes to show that you aliens aren't all bad after all. In fact, do you know what you deserve? A medal.'_ So what do you say? Do you think you can earn a medal?"

Elita was sitting in the pilot's chair in the cockpit, while the metal ball of an Advisor that was Wheatley was placed in the co-pilot's seat.

Elita brought up her hand and pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration, "Oh Goddess, do you ever shut up?"

The spacecraft that they were in, had been skimming across the treetops of the jungle to get to her stealth ship. Elita had briefly thought about simply flying this ship off planet, but she did away with that idea pretty fast. The cargo ship didn't have any kind defense capabilities and would most likely be shot down before she even got out of the planet's atmosphere, so it was best to just ride the ship to her stealth ship and sneak her way off the planet.

In the meantime, she had occupied herself the last twenty-five minutes by interrogating Wheatley.

Before she had become an agent of the Shadow Broker, she had been a commando for the asari military. Specifically, she had been a part of the Torture and Interrogation Unit. Elita herself had been trained by the greatest interrogator in the galaxy…

The Scalpel.

The Scalpel was, of course, just a codename, used for the most effective interrogator in the asari military. The codename wasn't even a representation of her techniques, as the asari that Elita trained under barely ever used any kind of tools.

An asari's most effective tool was the mind-meld, the ability to look into another's memories and learn the information that they know, unfortunately the mind-meld was only successful if the person who was having the mind-meld done upon them was _willing_ to give up that information. So, asari interrogation revolved around the interrogator trying to know and understand the prisoner even more than the prisoner does.

And the Scalpel was the best at it. Some said that the Scalpel got so good at breaking people that she was able to learn a person's darkest secrets by simply glancing at them, and could bring a person to be an emotional wreck with just a few simple words.

Elita shuddered inwardly, she still remembered what happened to the prisoners that met the Scalpel.

So empty… so broken…

One day though, the Scalpel had simply disappeared. No one knew what happened, and any who did know weren't talking.

Now, Elita was definitely not even comparable to the Scalpel, but she still had been _trained_ by the Scalpel. She was still very near the top of the field, so it was reason to believe that if there was any Shadow Broker agent that could gain information from the mysterious Advisors that uplifted humanity, it would be her.

Unfortunately for her, the Advisor was an AI and is unable to be mind-melded, due to the fact that the Advisor doesn't have any organic nervous system.

Luckily for her, Elita had all sorts of high-tech equipment in her ship that could be used to hack the little AI's memory board and bypass any kinds of firewalls.

Unluckily for her, Elita had spent the last twenty-five minutes passing time by trying to see if she could learn anything from Wheatley through the old fashion way: asking questions.

She had given up past the five minute mark.

Elita had absolutely no idea if Wheatley was either the most advanced AI in the galaxy or if he was the most flawed? What wasn't in doubt was the fact that Wheatley was the single most annoying thing in the world. Because though Elita had stopped asking questions twenty minutes ago, Wheatley on the other hand had yet to stop _talking_.

"Oh, did you want me to be quiet? I'm sorry, I'll try to keep quiet about my KIDNAPPING!" Wheatley yelled frustratingly, "In fact, I was just thinking the other day about the people who deserve to have some peace and quiet. Do you know who took the number one spot? It was kidnappers! I was thinking that if anyone deserved it, it was them, because they just take _so _much time out of their lives to spend it with their favorite person. You know, ME!"

"THAT'S IT!" Elita screamed as she raised her biotically charged fist in a threatening manner. It was only when Wheatley recoiled in horror did Elita control herself.

_That's_ why Elita couldn't figure out if Wheatley was either incredibly advanced or incredibly flawed. AI's _don't_ recoil in horror, they _don't _know how to be frustrated, and they definitely _don't_ act so idiotic. AI's do not act like living people.

"_You have arrived at your destination. Landing sequence: engaged,"_ the virtual intelligence program said in its neutrally synthetic voice from the cockpit.

Elita looked out the window of the cockpit and smiled, she then grabbed Wheatley by the handles and slammed him into the window.

"YOU SEE THAT?! THAT'S MY SHIP! IT'S IN THERE THAT I'M GOING TO PRY EVERY LITTLE SECRET FROM YOUR COLD METTALIC CORE! SO, SHUT UP!" Elita yelled out all of her pent up frustration of two years into Wheatley. She then carried Wheatley out of the cockpit and into the cargo hold where she slammed her hand on the button that lowered the ramp.

While Elita waited for the ramp to lower to the ground, Wheatley's gaze was locked onto the ceiling of the cargo hold.

"You have a very lovely starship, it's too bad that you'll never fly it again," Wheatley said ominously.

A loud thump behind her and Elita quickly turned around to see what was behind her, only to have the force of a truck hit her. Elita was propelled out of the ship and into the jungle, landing on her back, Elita quickly recovered as fast as she could to gaze back at the ship.

Walking down the ramp was a huntress wearing a white hoodie and orange pants with a shotgun strapped to her back. Elita realized that the huntress had kicked her, as a hunter's leg muscles were quite powerful. The huntress then bent down and picked up Wheatley from off of the ground.

Elita's eyes narrowed in anger, _"No,"_ she thought, _"I've come too far to be denied this now."_

Picking herself up, Elita threw up a biotically charged hand and Pulled the huntress up into the air. As Elita pulled out her assault rifle, it would be trivial to shoot the helpless huntress in the air. The only problem was that the huntress was much more prepared for Elita than any other human. As the huntress was pulled into the air, she was able to quickly get a grip of the ground and propel herself into the foliage of the jungle with Wheatley in tow.

"Damn it!" Elita cursed as she sprinted after them, she was not letting the biggest payday of her life escape her.

As the green foliage of the jungle brushed against her legs, Elita scanned the horizon around her. The denseness of the jungle's bushes and trees only allowed Elita to see thirty feet in front of her.

A snap of a twig drew Elita's attention behind her. Spinning around, Elita focused her sights on the foliage of trees in front of her, she stepped forward silently and cautiously, hoping to catch the huntress by surprise.

But it was Elita who was caught by surprise as her barriers flashed as the buckshot of the huntress's shotgun hit her in the back. Spinning on her keel, Elita threw out a biotic Push so hard in the general direction of the shots that it uprooted a nearby tree.

Breathing deeply, Elita reexamined her situation. She was alone in a jungle on a human planet playing a dangerous game of hide-and-seek with a huntress. One of the most dangerous things to do is to be put into a situation where keeping a bead on a human is next to impossible. The biggest advantage that humans have over other species is their amazing ability to move around an environment, whether it's a combat zone or not, effortlessly. Elita would have to be extremely cautious as the huntress could literally appear anywhere.

Suddenly, the bushes next to her ruffled around loudly. Elita, on impulse, immediately jumped away from the bushes, her back hitting against the trunk of a tree as she aimed down the sights of her assault rifle at the ruffling bushes.

Rolling out of the bushes was Wheatley.

Elita slowly lowered her gun with a confused look as she stared at the abandoned and unguarded Advisor.

The Advisor stared back with a proud tone, "Wow! …I seriously cannot believe that this idea worked so well."

Elita's eyes widened in surprise at that statement as she quickly brought her head up to see the huntress descending rapidly toward Elita.

A flash of pain, and then darkness encompassed her vision.

**Location: unknown**

"Ow! Be gentile! You're not handling heavy machinery! …Well, actually in a way you _are_ handling heavy machinery, but I'm not _that_ heavy and I do like to think that I require a bit more of a delicate touch."

Elita groaned awake to find her vision to be blurred by her drowsiness. When her eyes finally cleared up, the first thing that filled her view was one of the most oddly designed constructions she has ever seen. It was larger than an elcor and it hanged from the roof as a mesh of wires and metal chalices in the shape of some twisted anthropomorphism of a humanoid being hanged upside down.

And at the bottom of the construction, where the 'head' was, was the huntress that had knocked her out, and she was inserting Wheatley into the machine.

Elita attempted to move to do… something, _anything_, but she was unable to do much because her mobility was obstructed by the container that she was in. It was entirely made of glass and allowed her to view the chamber that she was in. The interior of the chamber that she was in was dome shaped and the walls were made out of metal panels. The chamber was also filled with humans in white lab coats stationed at computers, scientists no doubt.

"_Wheatley one-point-seven has been successfully reintegrated into Mindoir Laboratories,"_ a synthetic voice rang out into the chamber.

"Oh yeah… that's _much_ better," Wheatley's voice reverberated through the chamber as he rotated in joy in his body.

"Alright everyone, the plan went off without a hitch, so good jobs all around, especially me," Wheatley said proudly before he lowered himself toward the huntress that had stopped Elita, "of course, none of this would have been possible without Chell. Thank you, Chell, as a reward I bought you a rubiks cube, because I know how much you love puzzle games."

A mechanical claw holding a colorful cube was lowered from the ceiling. The huntress, now known as Chell, gladly took the cube and started toying with it.

Wheatley then turned his attention toward Elita.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't our new friend," Wheatley said sardonically, "how are you? Is there anything you need? A pillow? Some food? The classified information of all of our secrets?" Wheatley then swiftly extended his body toward Elita and yelled, "DID YOU THINK WE WERE ALL MORONS!? DID YOU HONESTLY THINK YOU COULD ESCAPE OUR NOTICE?!"

Elita took a startled step back, usually when she gets startled she can feel her biotics flare up.

But this time they didn't.

Elita brought her hand up to her neck to find, much to her horror, a mechanical collar.

"Haha, do you like it?" Wheatley asked, "It's a batarian slave collar, comes complete with biotic dampening capabilities. I have to say, you can get _anything _in the Terminus systems. But, do you know something that the Collective could never get their hands on?"

The panels of the wall behind Wheatley receded back to reveal Elita's stealth ship.

"It was good stealth technology," Wheatley answered for her, "but now, thanks to you, we now have some of the most advanced stealth technology in the galaxy, not to mention all those other gizmos you have on your ship."

Elita's face was scrunched up in fury as she gave Wheatley her most hate-filled stare.

"Of course, now there's the question of what to do with you?" Wheatley said, "But I already know the answer to that question. You see, each of us Advisors head each scientific field of study. And do you know what mine is?"

Suddenly, the glass container that Elita was trapped in slowly started to lower into the floor.

"It's xenobiology, the study of alien life forms."

Elita no longer looked at the Advisor with anger, but with fear-filled eyes.

"So, …let's start testing."

**Author's Note**

**Not a single one of you correctly guessed on who it was that saved humanity.**

**Well, here it is…**

**It was GlaDOS and all the other personality cores.**

**Just say that out loud: GlaDOS saved humanity.**

**Doesn't that just blow your mind!?**

**By the way, Wheatley 1.7 is an upgraded Wheatley that isn't overwhelmed with bad ideas. All the cores have been upgraded to be more efficient.**

**So, I just returned from Comic-Con 2013, and I only have two words and a letter to say:**

**Hall H, Saturday.**

…**If you were there that day, you know what I mean.**

**Other Personalities: Oh gee, you're so thoughtful… wait, WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?! OH, I AM SO TAKING THIS THE WRONG WAY. Nah, just kidding, I love you too.**

**Evelsaint93: well, now you know.**

**Eipok: sorry, I was wondering how I could use the vortiguants as Advisors if GlaDOS didn't work out, but I just couldn't think of anything good. Unfortunately, Valve hasn't shown anything in Half-life 2 or its episodes about the vortiguants that I could use.**

**aDarkOne: I'm the author, so I DO know what would happen. Oh yes, I have plans.**

**Lay Down Hunter: if you see a: 'this story is rated M for a reason' at the top, then that means that the chapter has some …content in it, but I'm not going to issue a warning in the middle of a story when something's about to happen. I always felt that that just ruins the atmosphere that I was building. Also, I wouldn't exactly call it 'zombie sex.' First off, it was more of the first five minutes of foreplay than actual sex. And second off, remember that the humans aren't really zombies, they barely even look like zombies now. The humans act more like animals than they do zombies, so it's probably better to see it as animalistic sex than zombie sex, because the alternative is just… eww. And thanks for the compliments.**

**Omake 1**

Elita slowly walked away from the dashboard and through the aisles of plants to get a better view of the inside of the pod.

The interior of the pod was absolutely filled with all kinds of small pinpoint dots of various colors that shined brightly to convey their status. The pod also contained a number of wires and circuitry that connected to the center mass of the pod. And located in that center mass was…

A panda.

"Wuh?" Elita said intelligently.

"Hey, don't worry about it. I didn't get it at first too," said the panda with a voice that could belong into to a rockstar, "there is no secret ingredient."

Elita took this information and replied appropriately.

"Wuh?"

**Omake 2**

Elita slowly walked away from the dashboard and through the aisles of plants to get a better view of the inside of the pod.

The interior of the pod was absolutely filled with all kinds of small pinpoint dots of various colors that shined brightly to convey their status. The pod also contained a number of wires and circuitry that connected to the center mass of the pod. And located in that center mass was…

A salarian.

The salarian put his hand to his chin.

"Fascinating," said Mordin.

**Omake 3**

Elita slowly walked away from the dashboard and through the aisles of plants to get a better view of the inside of the pod.

The interior of the pod was absolutely filled with all kinds of small pinpoint dots of various colors that shined brightly to convey their status. The pod also contained a number of wires and circuitry that connected to the center mass of the pod. And located in that center mass was…

Elita was lifted off the ground and was slammed into the wall of the basement before she could see what was in the pod. Elita tried with all of her biotic might to escape from the mysterious force, but it was useless as all of her attempts ended in failure.

The mysterious force then pulled her off of the wall and brought her to the front of the pod where she could see what was in it.

The inhabitant of the pod looked like a giant slug, yet it was lacking any types of eyes. Instead, the creature had two thinly tendrils to act as its arms and mechanical camera that proceeded to examine Elita.

In the middle of the creature's face was an orifice. Elita's eyes widened in fear when a long appendage slithered out of that orifice just inches from her face. The appendage prodded Elita's neck as if it was looking for something.

Suddenly, Elita was turned around to face the opposite wall, where upon the creature only had to prod the back of her neck once before it reared its appendage back, ready to lunge.

Tears were streaming down Elita's face as she desperately prayed for her goddess to save her.

She felt a piercing pain at the back of her neck and she knew peace.

Whateverduedzb looked at the Omake that he wrote.

He then looked at the story that he had written.

"Did I get these two mixed up?" he asked himself.

**Don't forget to leave a comment or a review. And remember, I'll love you more if you make the reviews longer. Your contribution is like adrenaline to us writers and inspires us to write more.**


	9. Chapter 9

Left 4 dead is owned by Valve.

Mass Effect is owned by Bioware.

Warning: this story is rated M for a reason.

First Infection

**Mindoir**

**2170 C.E.**

Ferocious, deadly, wild.

These are the words that describe the most dangerous animal in the galaxy…

The tiger.

This black and orange feline masterfully blends with the shadows of the jungle, despite its eye-catching colors. The Mindoir jungles were no-doubt one of the most dangerous places there is, and the powerful tiger only added to the jungle's ferocity. As the uncontested king of the jungle, the tiger enjoyed a privileged and fulfilling lifestyle. This particular tiger was crouching low to the jungle floor, steadily crawling through the foliage as it hunted for prey.

Unfortunately for the tiger, it was about to be kicked off the top-of-the-food-chain by an even more dangerous predator.

Crouching low in the grass behind the tiger was a hunter.

This hunter wasn't just _any_ kind of common hunter, no, he was the most dangerous hunter who had ever lived. He had successfully hunted and killed more animals than anyone had even _claimed_ to have done. His mansion, which was the most sought-after dwelling by anyone, was entirely made out of the bones and pelts of all he had killed.

This amazing hunter smiled victoriously behind the unaware tiger. His sharp claws, rumored to be as sharp as a witch's, dug into the ground as he crouched lower, getting ready to pounce on the tiger that he has had a personal vendetta on for all of his life.

As the hunter was just about to leap onto the tiger, a strange sound from above distracted him. Looking up, the hunter could only gape in horror as strange tendrils lowered themselves from the sky and wrapped around his torso, pulling his entire body upwards. Where could these vile things be taking him? Perhaps they were a part of a UFO, and the aliens inside were going to dissect him to find out what made him tick. Or perhaps the tendrils were connected to some type of Lovecraftian horror and they were pulling him into some kind of interdimensional pocket where upon he will go insane by the sheer existence of that place.

"C'mon, pup. Your father is leaving for work," said the Lovecraftian monster that had taken the shape of an adult huntress, holding the hunter to her chest.

"But _mom,_ I was just about to finally tackle him," the pup whined as he pointed at the tiger, "For once, _I_ had the drop on _him_."

His mother gave him a pleasant knowing smile, and bent down to pick up the stuffed tiger, "Oh, don't worry," she said as she handed the toy tiger to her son, "I'm sure you'll have _plenty_ of chances."

The little hunter seemed to disagree, as he grumbled, "_Maybe,_ but now he'll be even _more_ wary," her son was quiet for a few moments before he turned a furious gaze toward the tiger in his little claws, "don't say that you were just _'humoring me,'_ admit it, you had no idea I was even there."

The huntress rolled her eyes playfully as her son argued with his toy. Holding him close to her with her arms, the mother made her way away from the grassy hill where her son was playing, and toward the grand stone entrance of the settlement that they lived in. The entrance was built into the side of a mountain that contained numerous cave systems, which were used to house the inhabitants of the mountain.

As the mother carried her son up to the large double doors of the stone entrance, she took a moment to stop and read the decorative words posted at the top of the entrance.

'Welcome to Hubiku,' it read, 'Capital of the Yucatan territory on Mindoir!'

The mother smiled and proceeded past the entrance into the cave; the echo of her son's one-sided argument with the toy bouncing off the walls as she walked through the cave system. Dotted along the walls of the cavern were fluorescent lamps that lit up the paths of the caves. Every once in a while, a fork in the cave system would appear with a stone tablet located in the middle that would give directions. The mother huntress completely ignored these tablets as she walked through the caverns, relying entirely on her memory of the pathways. After a couple of minutes of navigating the cavern, she had entered what passed for the town square of Hubiku.

She was in a cenote, which is a large and deep pit with a large expanse of groundwater at the bottom. The cenote had no roof, which allowed the solar system's star to shine brightly down into the hole. What was most noteworthy, were the steel platforms and buildings that were built into the walls of the cenote. Most of the buildings were stores and had signs of the building's name hanging above their entrances and had glass windows that showcased their merchandise.

During the Pandemic, people living on the Yucatan Peninsula would hide in the hard-to-reach caverns that dotted the walls of cenotes. After the missiles had flown out and humanity had changed, people hiding in the cenotes started building settlements in them. After many years had passed by, the Collective had finally discovered the hidden settlements, and the cenotes had become tourist hot-spots. Eventually, the Yucatan territory had earned enough points from the tourism business that they were able to afford to expand their territory into space.

Taking a step out of the cavern and onto a steel platform, the huntress watched people climb up and down the walls of the cenote to get to the various stores and buy wares. There were also metal bridges and zip lines that helped people traverse the cenote much easier. At the bottom of the cenote, where the lake of groundwater was, were wooden platforms that floated on the water. Those floating wooden platforms were used to reach the settlement's governmental buildings that were carved into the bottom walls of the cenote.

Walking past the various vendors on the platform that she was on, the huntress bypassed the crowds of people until she faced a section of the wall that was under the platform that she needed to get to.

Telling her child to wrap his arms around her neck, the huntress released her hold on her son and started climbing up the stone wall of the cenote. The setae on her hands were easily able to get a grip on the wet rocks, making climbing up to the upper platform an effortless process.

When she reached her destination, she jumped from off of the wall and onto the platform, making a loud metal clank sound as she landed on it. Holding onto her son again, she looked up to see that the open top of the cenote was only just a few meters above her head.

"Hey, Maya," said a voice next to the huntress.

Blinking in surprise, the huntress turned her head to see a blonde, glowing red-eyed witch leaning against the railing of the platform. Wearing only a blue two-piece bikini while licking a colorful ice-cream cone, the witch looked quite relaxed.

"Oh hi, Jade," the huntress, Maya, replied, "taking a break?"

"Yeah, I'm giving my throat a chance to heal," Jade was a young singer at the Deep Bellow, a local club located deep down in the caves where an underground lake had formed. Jade had quickly become one of the more popular singers after she started working there, as her angelic voice echoed off of the cave walls quite beautifully.

"Oh! By the way," Jade did a little twirl as she showcased her body, looking at Maya, she nervously nibbled her bottom lip and asked, "What do you think of my new top and bottom?"

Maya smiled at Jade and gave her a look that told her they've been down this road before. Looks like Jade needed a bit of a confidence boost again.

"Jade, honey, please stop worrying. You're beautiful, and once more: you're a _woman_. Just go out into the jungle and mount a man if you want your sexual needs fulfilled," Maya said informingly, "You don't need to get all dressed up or try to flaunt your beautiful body, you just need to be a bit aggressive and men will be like putty in your claws… well, for the first five minutes anyways," Maya smirked at that, "once their brains finally catches up to them and they realize what's happening they try to fight us for dominance, which just makes the sex _so_ much better." Mmm, she remembered her first time: it was on a beach back on Earth, with a hunter like herself, they had just killed a shark and brought it to the shore, their blood was pumping at the fresh kill, she had pounced the surprised hunter's bones and ripped off the fragment of clothing that was covering his package, they did it right on top of the dead shark, she was pretty sure she lost a finger in the frenzy…

"Maya? Maya you there?" Maya came out of her daze to see a hand with deadly sharp claws waving from side-to-side in front of her face.

"Hmm? Oh! Yes, sorry about that," Maya said bashfully, "anyways, I hope you got my point."

Jade raised an eyebrow at that, "Yeah, I did. Over ten years ago, when you first told me," smirking, Jade gained a haughty tone and said, "And I'll have you know, that my sexual needs have been getting _quite_ fulfilled if I do say so myself."

Jade leaned toward Maya and said, "By the way, thanks for the tip about doing it after a fresh kill. The charger that I was doing it with pinned me onto the corpse of a mountain goat that I had killed. Being surrounded by all of that blood and guts while being systematically… heheh… _slammed,_ gave me such a euphoric high," Jade then stopped smirking and started looking a bit nervous, "but that's not what I was asking. I was just wondering if you think that _this_," she gestured toward her bikini, "will impress …um… a _special _someone?"

Maya gasped in realization, "Oh my gosh! Jade did… did you find _someone_?"

Jade leaned back against the railing and looked around the cenote, bashfully avoiding eye contact with Maya, "…Maybe…"

Maya smiled enthusiastically, "Well…? Spill, girl. Tell me _everything_ about him. Who is he? Where did you first meet?"

"…He's a smoker," Jade said in an embarrassed manner, "and he's the guitar player of the band that plays at Deep Bellow."

"Romero?" Maya asked to which Jade confirmed with a vigorous nod, "ooh, good for you, he's very talented with that guitar of his. Not to mention that he's a real cutie too. This also explains the bikini, he _loves_ to hang at the beach north of here."

"Do you think he'll notice me? I mean there are a lot of people at the beach, I might just end up blending into the crowd," Jade asked nervously, before fixing a serious stare at Maya, "Maya, how did you get your partner to notice you?"

Maya blinked in surprise at that sudden question, but she quickly collected herself and gave Jade a straightforward answer.

"I don't wear anything below the waist," she answered truthfully.

And indeed she doesn't. Instead of wearing a hoodie, Maya covered her head with a green bandana that she had tied on, and wore sunglasses to keep the sun out of her sensitive eyes. She also had an electronic watch that she wore on her left wrist. Maya was also wearing a loose halter top that ended just above her hips with thick straps that wrapped around the back of her neck.

Below that halter top, she wore nothing.

Maya sighed contently as a cool breeze rolled through the cenote.

Jade waited patiently for Maya to explain, but after a moment of silence, she asked, "So? Plenty of people in Hubiku wear the same amount of clothing as you do, some none at all."

"Ah yes, but George didn't live in Hubiku, or even in the Yucatan territory," Maya answered, "he lived in a hive city that's in neutral territory. You know, territory that's owned only by the Collective government. Over there, they still had a habit of wearing clothing over certain body parts."

"Oh, I see where this is going," commented Jade wryly.

"Yeah, and at the time I worked as a tourist guide, so I was the first Yucatan citizen he ever met," Maya giggled as she remembered the fond memory, "he was _so_ surprised to see my finely tanned ass, heh, it probably didn't help that I was bending down to pick up a clipboard off of the floor at the time. Boy, he sure did get a _grand_ view of the famous Yucatan beauty."

Maya stopped giggling and continued the story with a smile on her face, "Anyways, after I explained to him the difference in social customs around here, he apologized profusely for making a scene and wanted to take me out to dinner as way of apology. I accepted, had a wonderful time, and we started dating. Eventually, the aggressive passionate sex we've been having slowly turned into beautiful lovemaking. And that lovemaking eventually ended up making this little guy," she said as she lifted her son up.

Jade waved her claws at the child and said, "Hey there little munchkin, how are you?"

The little hunter in the green hoodie and blue shorts puffed out his cheeks in irritation at being called 'munchkin' and at having to listen to the conversation while his mother held onto him. It was the worst type of conversation too, it was some kind of twisted combination of girl talk (extremely annoying) and grown-up talk (extremely boring). The conversation had become so tortuous that his pet tiger had escaped his mother's grasp and tried to run out of earshot of the conversation. Emphasis on 'try,' as he had a firm grip on the tiger's tail. If _he_ was going to be subjected to this torture, then they _both_ were. Honestly, why couldn't adults talk about more interesting stuff, like giant robots or alien invasions? The little hunter wanted to complain to his mother, but he found that whenever he did that, the conversations always lasted _longer_. So, for the most part, he just quietly tuned the conversation out and tried to focus his attention elsewhere.

Like the delicious food in Jade's claws.

"What's that?" Maya's son asked as he pointed a stubby claw at the ice cream cone that Jade was holding.

Jade smiled as she held the cone up to the little hunter's gaze and said, "This is a strawberry-vanilla-chocolate mix ice cream cone with a topping of boomer cream." Boomer cream, of course, is a fancy word for their vomit.

The little hunter stared at the ice cream cone in silent awe, before looking up at his mother with a pleading face.

"Mom, I want one. Can I have one? Please-please-please. I love you. Please. I really, really, really want one," babbled on the little hunter.

Maya gave Jade a deadpanned look, "Now look at what you've done," Maya looked down at her son and said, "Maybe tomorrow, right now we've really got to say goodbye to your father," Maya looked back up at Jade, "It was great talking to you Jade, but I have to go."

"Wait," Jade called out to Maya, "what about me and Romero? What should I do?"

Maya stared at Jade ponderously for a few moments, before leaning forward and whispering something into Jade's ear. When Maya pulled back, Jade's mouth hanged open and her cheeks were tinted rosemary.

"…and… that works?" Jade asked.

"Every time," Maya answered confidently, before turning around and walking down the steel platform toward the entrance of a cave. Entering the cave, she spent little time walking through the cave system before she reached her destination.

Another cenote.

The difference between this cenote and the first one was the fact that instead of being covered with stores, the walls of this cenote was covered by one giant building that stretched along a segment of the cenote walls. Along the walls of the building were a number of windows which allowed the occupants of the room to gaze down the cenote.

The Grand Hubiku Hotel.

Which is owned by Maya.

Entering the lobby of the hotel, Maya sighed happily as the cool air from the hotel's air conditioners enveloped her. The interior of the hotel was designed to emulate the Yucatan lifestyle, so the rooms and lobby of the hotel were constructed to look like caves, minus the dampness of course.

Walking up to the check-in desk, Maya greeted her boomer employee, "Hey there, Carlos."

"Hey Maya," Carlos said distractedly. He was wearing a long-sleeved shirt and shorts, usually he just tended to go around shirtless, but the air conditioned rooms of the hotel made it too chilly for his comfort. Currently, he had his attention focused on the holographic computer sitting on the desk.

"George leave yet?" Maya asked.

"Nope," Carlos replied, not moving his eyes away from the computer as he moved the mouse around.

Maya raised an eyebrow at his behavior, "Working hard, or hardly working?"

"Hard."

"Really," Maya said bemusedly, "because it looks like you're playing Solitaire."

"Spider Solitaire, actually," Carlos rebutted, "four suits too, so if that's not working hard, then I don't know what is."

Maya rolled her eyes at that, but she didn't stop him. It was a slow day anyways, so she let him play his games, she seriously doubted a large crowd of tourists were going to arrive today.

Speaking of large groups of people…

"Carlos, where's your Horde?" Maya asked, referring to the boomer's personal collection of commons.

"I've got them cleaning the rooms," Carlos said as he pointed a sharp thumb down the curving hallway of rooms. Sure enough, Maya saw a group of seven commons entering a room methodically, with each one holding some kind of cleaning tool.

"Good job," Maya said as she turned away from the check-in desk and the hallway to walk toward her own room.

"Mhmm," Carlos mumbled as he focused on his game. Crap, the computer was telling him that there are no more viable moves. He'll have to start the game all over again. Oh well, he might as well take this opportunity to go to the kitchen and grab an arm off of that common in the freezer. He could do with a light snack.

Maya punched the keycard for her room into the electronic slot next to the door. Hearing a click from the door, she pushed it open and entered her home. As the owner of the Grand Hubiku Hotel she was able to afford quite a few luxuries, like the huge high-definition vid-screen that hanged from the wall and the expensive holographic laptop that was sitting on the mahogany table. Both of which had wires hooked up to the sockets on the walls, which connected to either the Hubiku city generator for power or to the relay dish on top of the mountain that allowed access to the vid channels and the internet.

"George!" Maya called out.

"In here," a voice answered from their personal kitchen.

Maya entered her kitchen filled with stainless steel appliances, wooden cabinets, and bright blue tiles for the floor and counters. Standing next to the wooden dining table in the middle of the kitchen, Maya looked up at the person that was hanging from the suspended cabinet. Wearing a white shirt and brown khaki shorts, the person had long limbs and a protruding spine. The person's hands and feet were double-jointed and allowed the person to cling to the edges of the cabinet much more easily than anyone else could.

"Looking for something, George?" Maya asked with humor in her tone.

The jockey twisted his body around to reveal a frantic face covered by a bushy beard.

"Maya, do you know where my iTool is?" George asked, "I can't seem to find it."

"I'm not too sure," Maya said, "but I'm pretty certain that you won't find it in the spice cabinet."

George jumped off of the cabinet and onto the counter in a crouching position.

"Damn it," he cursed as he started to pace back-and-forth on the counter worriedly, "I've been searching for it _everywhere. _All of my field research was stored in there. If I go to Mindoir Laboratories without any of my data, who knows what kind of problems will arise. I _need_ to find tha-" His rant was cutoff mid-sentence when he turned around and Maya's lips met his own. Maya had jumped onto the counter that he was on when his back was turned and kissed him to calm him down. Their child being held in the mother's arms made a disgusted face at the scene.

"Eww," the pup cried at being at such a close proximity to the disgusting event.

Maya pulled away from her lover's face with a smirk and asked, "You calm?"

George nodded.

"Good, now listen to me," Maya said as she fixed him a confident gaze, "we need to find that iTool."

George was taken aback by that statement, "What? That's it? No, speech to boost my confidence? No, 'George you're the most experienced botanist on Mindoir, and you don't need a stupid iTool?' I don't get any of that?"

Maya smiled at him, "George you _are_ the most experienced botanist and you don't need me to tell you that. But thirty years of research data is _still_ thirty years of research data. So let's search our home as best as we can to find it."

"Found it," the pup in Maya's arms said as he held out an electronic watch, similar to the one that Maya was wearing. He had been keeping it in his pocket.

George's pale white eye's widened in surprise as he said, "Where did you find it? And more importantly _why_ do you have it?"

"_I found it inside your desk and I took it out so I could pretend that I was fighting aliens with an awesome lightsaber," _"I found it on the floor by that trashcan near your desk. I thought you had tried to throw it away, so I took it, because it seemed too good to be considered trash and I didn't want to be wasteful," the little pup said truthfully with a charming smile.

George gave him a stare that clearly said that he didn't believe him.

Squirming nervously under his father's gaze, the little pup pointed a claw at his pet tiger and said, "Also, it was his idea."

Rolling his eyes, George slipped the watch over his wrist and activated it. Immediately, his arm was covered by silver palettes of light. After a few moments of perusing through the data, George was happy to note that all of his research was still there.

"Alright," he said as he climbed off of the counter to stand up on the floor, "I need to leave for the train station soon if I want to make it to the lab in time."

"How long will you be gone for?" Maya asked as she jumped off of the counter too. Standing up, she was just a bit taller than George, as even standing up straight, the jockey's curved spine still forced them to lean forward slightly.

"I'll be gone for about a month," George answered, "or at least, that's how long the Advisor thinks we'll be there for."

"What's the Advisor like?" asked their curious son.

George paused at that. He always believed that by the time that he had a kid, he would be able to talk about Advisors openly. Over the years, the required clearance to learn about the Advisors has been steadily expanding to include more people. After all, the Director and Advisors only kept their identities a secret after the Pandemic, because they didn't want dissenters claiming that humanity was going to be ruled by computers.

Of course, that is _exactly_ what happened to humanity, but the Director and Advisors believed that it would be better if that fact wasn't twisted with such _negative_ implications.

Many years after the Pandemic ended, when people had become comfortable with the Collective's rule, the Director began a slow process of informing more people about the existence of her and the Advisors. The Director's goal of this process was to be able to have an easier time acquiring more scientists, information, and resources.

…And to have more people acknowledge the Director's and Advisors' rightfully deserved accomplishments.

Eventually, this process has allowed anyone that is the head of a department in the Administration, who has a rank higher than Staff Lieutenant in the Military, a top scientist, or a leader of an established territory to know about the Director and Advisors.

Unfortunately, the process stopped there when humanity came into contact with aliens. When the Collective was given a copy of the Citadel government's laws and regulations, they learned about the Citadel's policy with AI's.

Suffice to say, that the Director and Advisors were doing their best to make sure that the Citadel races _never_ learned about their existence.

"The Advisor is… enjoyable to be around, but that's all I can say," George answered his son's question, before leaning forward and kissing the top of his head. To which, the little pup cried out in disgust.

"Now you be good, alright," he told his son, "I don't want to come back here to find this place burnt down to a crisp, alright?"

"Alright," his son grumbled.

George then kissed Maya, who responded in kind, "Take care," he said.

And with that, he walked out of the room and made his way toward the train station.

The little hunter looked up at his mother.

Maya didn't say anything.

"Um… mom, can you let go of me now?" the pup asked.

Maya smirked and walked out of the kitchen with her son firmly in her grasp, "Why? This'll make it much easier."

Her son looked at her nervously, "…Make what easier?"

His question was answered when his mother opened a particular door to reveal a shiny bathtub.

The pup's eyes widened in fear and he opened his mouth to scream.

In the hotel's lobby, Carlos was biting off the finger of the hand that he got off from that common in the freezer when suddenly…

"NOOOooOOOooOOO!" a horrible wail erupted from Maya's room.

Carlos was so surprised by the scream, that he ended up swallowing an entire finger from that hand. The finger ended up getting stuck in his throat and he had to puke it out. While looking at the mess that he made on the desk, his Horde of commons ran out from the hallway and to the bile.

"Well, at least they brought the cleaning supplies," he said.

**Mindoir Laboratories**

George stood silently in his lab coat as he watched concrete walls swiftly pass him by.

Mindoir Laboratories was located deep underground under the Capital hive city of Mindoir. One of the very few ways to enter the laboratory was by elevator. The glass elevator was very spacious and roomy, and moved swiftly downward.

The concrete walls that George had watched pass by for the last three minutes finally receded and he was rewarded with a view of Mindoir Laboratories.

A multitude number of testing chambers and installations were suspended over the huge drop in the extremely large cavern. Along with the suspended installations were the various glass tubes that transported all sorts of objects between the test chambers and installations. As the glass elevator lowered itself into one of the installations, George met a familiar face.

"Diane," George greeted the female smoker. Diane was a prestigious scientist who specialized in environmental science. Wearing her white lab coat, she was a very prim-and-proper woman who kept her hair tied in a bun.

"George," she greeted back stoically, "you're late.

He shrugged his shoulders, "Only just."

Diane's tongues twitched at his words, "Come on," she said in an even tone as she turned around and walked down the hallway, "They're waiting on us."

After a few minutes of walking down the corridors of Mindoir Laboratories, George and Diane had arrived at the Central AI Chamber. The chamber was dome shaped and had over a dozen scientists in lab coats standing around. Most of them were conversing with each other to pass the time. Standing in the center of the chamber was the famous and ever-silent Chell, the head of security for all Advisors. Usually, Chell was on Earth with the Director, who resided in the mysterious headquarters of the Research and Development division of the Collective government, but every once in a while, Chell would go out and visit an Advisor or personally oversee an operation.

Hanging from the center of the ceiling was the very Advisor that had called all of these scientists to this meeting, Wheatley. Currently, Wheatley was talking to a male spitter dressed in a green uniform that was covered with medals, most likely he was a high-ranking officer of the military. They were both looking over a vid-screen that showed some kind of huge dinosaur-like alien in a test chamber.

"As you can see by this recording, Commander, we have done extensive testing with this species and I can conclude that krogan are _bloody_ dangerous," Wheatley said to the military commander, "also, fun fact: krogans really, really, _really_ hate to be kept in captivity, especially if it's for science. Of course, most people _do_ tend to hate being held captive, obviously, but these krogans seem to really hate it. The first time we told a krogan subject that we were studying him to see what he will do, he refused to take part in any more tests and started banging against the walls to try and escape. After that, we only learned one valuable bit of science from that subject: krogans can be killed by crushers. Still, one good thing about these krogans is that when you capture one, nobody in the galaxy seems to care. Which makes our job capturing them just a bit more easier. But just a bit, I mean there still bloody krogan after all."

"Wheatley," Diane said, gaining the Advisor's attention, "we're all here now and ready for you."

Wheatley turned back to the commander, "Anyways commander, I'll have the data about the krogans on your computer by tomorrow."

Wheatley faced the crowd of scientists and addressed them, "Hello everyone and welcome back to Mindoir Laboratories. Well… let's get this meeting started. First order of business is to belay a bit of bad news to all of you. Well actually, the first order of business was telling you what the first order of business was, but that's a bit redundant now, isn't it?"

"Anyways, as you all know, humans are incapable of gaining biotic powers and we have been doing all kinds of tests to figure out a way to make this untrue," Wheatley said confidently, "one of the most recent tests involved cloning eezo nodules from one of our asari test subjects and surgically implant them into the commons. Now, I don't want to give much away, but suffice it to say that… about all of the commons have… exploded. So we'll be shelving that experiment for the time being."

"But we do have a bit of good news," Wheatley said cheerfully, "with the technology that we have been receiving from the quarians, we were able to create, drum roll please, sealant clothing! Which is clothing that is able to reseal torn holes as if they were never there, which is just amazing if I do say so myself. We made the clothing after we got the designs from the quarian suits. Would you believe that I spent literally hours tearing up clothing and watching them reseal up? It's so interesting to watch."

Wheatley then calmed down a bit and gave them all a serious stare, "Now let's get to the main reason why I called you all here."

The chamber darkened and a holographic display of the planet popped up in the center.

"Mindoir… is dying," Wheatley said dramatically. He then rotated around the hologram and said happily, "So… nothing serious really."

"Now, I'm sure you all know that you humans have gained a… _bit_ of an appetite after the Pandemic… and also a need to kill," Wheatley lectured them, "So the animals on Earth got a small dose of…_overkill_, which didn't do so well for Earth's environment. Luckily for all of you, the Director, me, and the other Advisors and scientists to a lesser extent, were able to create a chemical that increased animal and plant reproduction exponentially, which helped balance the natural order of things …for the most part."

"Now Mindoir was a low-tier planet when we colonized it, as it only had plant life and a few small animals, which didn't satiate human bloodlust at all," Wheatley said as he shook his 'head,' "No, no it did not. So to rectify this, we brought over some of Earth's animals to liven the place up, which worked wonders. Unfortunately, all of those animals have caused _massive_ environmental damage, with whole forests and jungles disappearing overnight. So the Director will be sending us a shipment of the chemicals that was used on Earth, which will be arriving in a week or so."

"Which is where you guys come in," Wheatley addressed the crowd of scientists, "When the shipment of chemicals arrive, we will be working around the clock to adapt the chemicals to only affect the plant life on this planet. When that's done, the commander here," Wheatley gestured toward the uniformed spitter, "will load the modified chemicals into the missiles on his warship and detonate them over various areas of the planet's atmosphere. Which we will be spending the month analyzing and observing the effects on the planet, in case we need to intervene with a few extra cases of an even more modified chemicals. Oh, and don't worry about the chemical harming humans, the Virus inside of all of you will nullify the effects. That said …I am going to need all of you to wear hazmat suits when it gets here, I don't want to risk you humans contaminating the very dangerous chemicals with your virus."

Wheatley looked at all of them, "Now… any questions?"

**Torfan, in a deep underground base**

"When do we attack?"

The batarian general tore his gaze from the galactic map and looked up at the pirate that asked the question.

"Two weeks," the general said, "you attack Mindoir in two weeks,"

**Author's Note**

**Ah hunter pups, aren't they just the cutest things in the galaxy?**

**For this chapter, I decided to finally give you readers a small peek in the daily life of human society. **

**Now, I'm sure that plenty of you have a lot of questions, like: what the hell is a cenote? Well, if you ever played Far Cry 3, it's that giant-ass hole that Buck makes you dive into. So just imagine a town being built around that.**

**I'm sure a few of you are also wondering why those two women were talking about sex so openly when there was a child present? Or why humans now have a habit of wearing very little clothing. Why **_**are**_** humans so engrossed with sex? These questions and more will be answered in later chapters. Although I do want you guys to know that humanity's behavior with sex isn't just an excuse to have smut in this story, there **_**is**_** an actual deep psychological reason for their behavior.**

**Pertaining to the iTool: After the Pandemic ended, what remained of Apple, Microsoft, and the other powerful technology companies were eventually turned into subdivisions of the Research and Development division of the Collective.**

**Now on to the comments…**

**HOLY-WET-WALRUS-TESTES, BATMAN! THE USUAL AMOUNT OF REVIEWS I GET FOR A CHAPTER HAS BEEN DOUBLED! HOW DID THIS HAPPEN!?**

"…**It's because I'm Batman."**

…**Actually, I'm pretty sure it's because of Wheatley.**

**Everyone: Ah yes, give me **_**more**_** of your praise. It feeds me, makes me stronger. Seriously though everyone, thank you **_**so**_** much for all of the comments, it really inspired me to write more.**

**Nightmaster000 & Ruler of Existance: I'm sure a lot of you readers want to know why GlaDOS saved humanity. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to refer all of you to my Bad Poker Player note in my profile, sorry.**

**SoulVoid87: thanks, the trick with writing Wheatley is to always get him to counterpoint what he is saying.**

**aDarkOne: …your comment led me to looking up the Greek myth of Echidna. Now I've got even more ideas for this fic, thanks.**

**LayDownHunter: isn't Elita so kind?**

**Ussopking: I KNOW RIGHT? Aperture Science has such amazing technology. How did they ever lose to Black Mesa? There seriously needs to be more Portal fanfiction.**

**Eipok: Glowing green stuff? I don't remember any glowing green stuff? Do you mean the green dust from chapter five? Because the dust was only green because it contained a modified version of the ****Green**** Flu.**

**Medchtsia & .5: some of the portal and half-life technology will be incorporated later into the story. That's all I can say for now, sorry.**

**Omake 1**

"Now you be good, alright," he told his son, "I don't want to come back here to find this place burnt down to a crisp, alright?"

"Alright," his son grumbled.

George then kissed Maya, who responded in kind, "You too," he said.

Maya rolled her eyes, "It was only one time."

"I'm serious," George said, "You," he pointed at his son, "make sure she doesn't enter the kitchen while I'm gone."

**Omake 2**

Mordalfus Grea: Is it me or is Mordin becoming a trademark Omake gag.

"Yes, I believe so," Mordin said, "and I find the whole experience to be quite…" puts on sunglasses, "fascinating."

_YEEEEAAAAAHHHH!_

**Don't forget to leave a comment or a review. And remember, I'll love you more if you make your review longer. Your contribution is like adrenaline to us writers and inspires us to write more.**


	10. Chapter 10

Left 4 Dead is owned by Valve

Mass Effect is owned by Bioware

This story is rated M for Mature for a reason.

First Infection

**Mindoir, Hubiku**

**2170 C.E.**

"I didn't know that the planet was in such bad shape."

The Deep Bellow is a club located deep in the Hubiku cave system, situated in a particularly large cavern that contained an underground lake. The lake occupied about one-third of the cavern and was located at its southern corner. The club was lit up by the fluorescent lamps that hanged from the walls and the ceiling of the cavern. Various tables and booths dotted most of the cavern. Located in the center of the cavern was a large metal structure that contained the club's kitchen, which is where the chefs prepare the meals for the club's members and guests.

The most noteworthy aspect of the club was the stage that was located on the lake. The floating barge, covered with dazzling lights and connected by a floating bridge, served as entertainment for the club's occupants. Currently the stage was being occupied by a jazz band that was filling the club with the bitter tones of the blues.

Sitting at a particular booth were three individuals who were discussing their planet's environmental situation.

Maya shrugged at Romero's surprise, "Most of the damage has been situated around the southern area of the planet, where there's a smaller population of us and the animals had a chance to grow. At least, that's what George has been telling me through his messages."

Leaning against the comfy seat of the booth, Maya brought the cigarette in her hand to her mouth. A moment later, the comforting presence of nicotine entered her body and surrounded her mind.

Which lasted for all of twelve seconds.

The Virus inside of her consumed all of the cigarette's deadly chemicals and immediately set out to repair any damage that was done to the body, while systematically removing any sense of addictive elements from her mind. At the end of the process, the only evidence that Maya had ever smoked a cigarette was the very memory of the event.

Looking across the skeletal remains of their dinner, Maya smiled warmly at the couple in front of her.

Jade was nestled sweetly in Romero's arms, her sharp claws lying on her lap, and her head resting calmly at the crook of his neck. Her face held a serene look as she slumbered in his hold. Usually humans didn't sleep from being physically tired, but for mental reasons instead. Jade was taking a small nap because she had ordered a very large meal, an entire roasted pig, and because the Virus inside of her had received such a bountiful amount of sustenance, Jade was rewarded with a dose of euphoria. Her mind being in such a state of bliss, a small nap in her lover's arms just felt right to her.

Her lover, Romero, was a smoker, so along with being enveloped in green smoke he also had a number of tongues growing out of him. His most striking feature was the short crop of hair on his head that was dyed a bright blue. The only article of clothing that he wore was a large green jacket with the name of his band: 'Favored' stitched in gold lettering. The jacket was open and showed off his well-defined muscles. With the jacket being his only article of clothing, Maya and Jade were commonly treated with a grand view.

"So, what exactly is being done for the environment?" Romero questioned. Unlike Jade, he and Maya had ordered a much smaller meal and did not feel the same euphoria that Jade had, so they were able to continue with their conversation.

After taking a small smoke from her cigarette to enjoy just a few scant seconds of nicotine, Maya answered, "Remember a few days ago? When there was all that blue dust in the air? According to George, that was some type of chemical that was going to raise… um, plant reproduction, I think. Which is going to help balance the ecosystem." Maya gave Romero a confused look, "By the way, why don't you know about this? There was like an entire news announcement about the whole thing a week ago."

Romero scratched the back of his head in thought, "You know, I think I was down here in the club rocking out with my band at the time."

Maya raised an eyebrow, "And what about three days ago? Weren't you at all curious about all of those chemicals covering everything?"

"Probably would have been, but… heh… well," Romero smiled at the witch in his arms, "me and Jade kind of… _happened _that day and spent most of our time inside my apartment."

Maya smiled wryly.

Romero noticed, "Not like _that_, we just spent the day talking, you know, getting to know each other."

Maya continued to smile wryly.

"The day after on the other hand…" Romero said.

She smirked triumphantly at that, but that smirk quickly turned into a frown when she noticed that something was off. It took her a moment to realize that the club was lacking music. The jazz band that had been playing had apparently finished and left the stage vacant for the next performance. A fact that Romero also noticed.

One of Romero's tongues that was growing from his midsection had found its way to Jade's dozing face. Trying to wake her up, the tongue prodded her face and tickled her nose. Jade whined angrily at the annoyance in her sleep before she leaned forward and bit the tongue. Opening her glowing red eyes, with a tongue between her teeth, Jade gave Romero a cheeky smile.

"Funny," Romero said, "Jade, that jazz band is done and you're up next."

Jade groaned in disagreement at that and burrowed herself back into the crook of his neck, trying to get back to sleep and enjoy his warmth.

Maya giggled at the scene.

Romero rolled his eyes at Jade's antics, "C'mon Jade, you have a job to do and you don't want to deprive all of these people of your beautiful voice, now do you?"

His tongue falling out of her mouth, Jade gave out an exasperated sigh, "_Fine_." Sitting up straight, Jade stared straight ahead as she blinked herself awake. Satisfied with her level of awareness, Jade gave Romero a sweet goodbye kiss and sauntered herself toward the back of the stage.

"You guys make a cute couple."

"Really?" Romero put on a small smile, "From what Jade has told me, I should thank you for that."

"Oh?" Maya said innocently, "Why, whatever do you mean?"

"Apparently, according to Jade, you had imparted some advice to her that helped get us together," Romero leaned forward onto the table, "Jade never told me what it was, said she was too embarrassed by it."

Gaining a coy smile, Maya replied, "And you think you can get it from me while Jade busies herself backstage?"

"Maybe," Romero said with a smile, "will I?"

Maya placed her sharp hand on her forehead to placate a pulsing headache. With a smile, she said, "Talk to him."

Romero raised an eyebrow, "Huh?"

Removing her hand from her head, Maya gave Romero an amused smile, "Oh, you should have seen Jade when she asked me for advice on attracting your attention. She was acting so nervous for someone she had fallen for," Maya stopped her story to let out a few giggles, and with a smile on her face and an invisible far-off look in her abyssal eyes behind her sunglasses, she continued in a giddy manner, "if only she knew how I had already learned that the person that she had fallen for," she looked at him with a smile that would rival a viper's, "was already smitten with her."

Sitting up straight with surprise, Romero stammered, "I… err, but… what?"

"You know, my son is quite the adventurous lad," Maya smoked her cigarette, letting a small amount of smoke escape her nostrils, the thin trails of smoke being made up of the few particles that had escaped the Virus's vicious eradication, "he gets into all sorts of places, and finds a wide variety of items that may or may not have previously belonged to someone."

Romero's eyebrows rose a little.

"Like a picture of Jade with lyrics on the back."

One of Romero's eyebrows lowered while another stayed raised, "How do you know I wrote that?"

"Hey, you know that sheet that lists all of the club's members with their signatures?" Maya asked coyly, "Well, I noticed that you have a very _unique_ style of handwriting. Really love writing those curves, huh?"

Romero scratched the back of his head bashfully.

"So, knowing what I knew then," Maya continued the story, "I just told her to start up a conversation with you. That's all you two really needed, just a little push."

A groan sounded off beside her and Maya looked over to see a male common standing in front of their booth. It was dressed in a fancy black and white waiter outfit and holding out a tray to them. On that tray was a mechanical device.

"I'll pay for this meal," Maya said, "my treat."

Maya reached over and plucked the device off of the tray. As a small square device with a padded screen on the top it was used to transfer the customer's currency to the club as payment for the food and entertainment. As a member of the club, Maya got a discount so long as she provided her signature. Focusing on the padded screen in front of her, Maya was about to write down her signature, but she stopped when she clenched her eyes shut in irritation at her pulsing headache.

"Ok, so… besides the devious way you went about it, I am actually glad that you helped us get together," said Romero, "That said, this does explain why Jade was so embarrassed about telling me the advice. Saying that she only had to talk to me probably made her feel a tad bit silly because she had never thought of doing something so simple. She can be a bit self-conscience about these things. Of course, what does that-" Romero was interrupted by a shriek.

Maya leapt over the table and pounced Romero, pinning him to the cushioned booth. Growling behind bared teeth, Maya had a feral look on her face. Her halter top was gone which meant that she was completely nude. Her perky breasts were in full display and they were rising and lowering in conjunction with Maya's deep breathing. Crouching over her prey, her clawed feet clenched the cushioned booth in anticipation, tearing holes into the fabric. Her labia puffed red and was emanating an intense heat at being just a few inches away from being penetrated.

Putting a hand over the smoker's mouth to stop its incessant yapping, Maya started lowering herself onto him, where upon she barked out in pleasure as she was entered. Too far gone to consider anything else, she slammed herself down onto the smoker's phallus to which she arched her head upwards and cried out a loud moan as she was penetrated so deeply. As she started rhythmically humping whoever was under her, Maya let out animalistic barks of pleasure with each bounce, while also roughly kneading her breasts to increase the pleasure.

She wanted, _needed_ more.

Not breaking her rhythm, she twisted around, reached over and grabbed the common by its shoulder and pulled it over to her. She then took a bite out of its throat, ripping out its jugular. While she chewed lovingly on the organ, blood absolutely poured out of the common's open wound, completely spraying them both in red. Blood trailed down over her entire body, down her breasts, tickling her skin, and forming a pool around them. Swallowing the delicious flesh, Maya dived back into the common's open wound and started gnawing at it ravishingly as streams of blood trickled down her cheeks.

…her rhythmic humping…

….body covered in blood…

…tasty flesh between her teeth…

…_nirvana_…

"Maya,"

Blinking, Maya stared at the device in front of her. She pressed her sharp pointer finger onto the device's padded screen where upon she used her finger to write her signature. The digital layout of the screen traced her signature into existence. After the device accepted Maya's signature and granted her the club's member discount, she activated her iTool, her arm becoming covered in the silver palettes of light. Pressing a few holographic buttons, Maya soon transferred the reduced amount of points into the device. She then wordlessly placed the device back onto the common's tray, to which the common gave a mindlessly trained bow and walked off.

Romero gave Maya a curious look, "Maya, are you okay? You were staring at that device for a full minute."

Maya rested her head on the table, her hands massaging her forehead as she tried to recede her headache through sheer force of will.

Taking note of the odd, yet very familiar, behavior that Maya was exhibiting; Romero asked her a very important question.

"Maya… when was the last time you killed something? Or had sex?"

Maya thought about it for a few seconds, her headache making it a bit harder than usual, and then, "Um… hmm, Oh! I remember, me and George had a nice romp on the day before he left. As for the last time I killed something, I think it was like a month and a half ago, some type of monkey, I don't really remember what it was."

Romero gained an astounded look on his face, "A month and a half ago!? Geez Maya, people have a hard enough time trying to think after two weeks of no sex, but when you add to that an instinctive desire to kill that hasn't been getting its fill, then you start getting some fucked up urges."

"You have no idea," Maya said, head still on the table.

"C'mon, Maya," Romero said, "You're nearly twice my age, you know this stuff better than I do. What's the problem?"

"First off, I'm only fifty years old, not sixty," Maya replied in a testy manner, "and to answer your question: It's my son. It's been… um, let's just say that it has been difficult getting a sitter for him, especially with George off at work. So I haven't really gotten a chance to go out in the jungle and hunt."

"Wait," Romero asked in a confused manner, "who's watching him now?"

"Cartoon marathon," she answered in a deadpanned tone. Raising her iTool to check the time, she said, "I'd say I have about another hour before he even notices I'm gone."

"…Okay, then how about you just take your son with you into the jungle," Romero offered, "You know, show him the ropes. As a parent you're going to have to teach him eventually, so why not now?"

Maya gave him a look, "Romero… he's only eight. He still has at least another ten years before he even gets the urge to kill."

"So that's a no I take it?"

"No," she answered, then she shrugged nonchalantly, "besides, I'll just kill a few commons on the way home, they're not as fulfilling as going out into the jungle, but they'll help stave off the urges until tomorrow."

"Why?" asked Romero, "What happens tomorrow?"

She gave him a sweet smile, "Oh, did Jade not tell you? She volunteered you both to babysit the pup while I'm gone."

Maya took a plentiful amount of pleasure in watching Romero's face twist into an expression of shock, then resentment, and then finally an admitted defeat.

"I don't really have a choice in the matter do I?"

A smirk, "Nope."

"Alright, but I have to know about the sex," he said.

Maya blinked in surprise at that demand, "Uh… what?"

"You know," Romero said, "why did you go two weeks without sex? That's not really something people deprive themselves of, especially when there are so many outlets that are readily available."

Maya shrugged, "Well, I wasn't really thinking so much about sex after me and George had a good romp, and when I started to really get those urges again, my fourth month had come," she said simply. She was, of course, talking about her period. After humanity became infected with the Virus, women only ovulated once every four months, that's three times a year. Many scientists have theorized it as a side-effect of the longevity that the Virus has granted humanity, because although the special infected ovulate a smaller number of eggs per year, women over a century years of age, which is way past the pre-virus stage of menopause, are still ovulating. This theory has faced criticism though, because logically if a stretched out longevity is the cause, then the egg should also have a longer period of time to be implanted with sperm. This is not the case, instead the average pre-virus time period of two weeks has been shortened to just a measly three days, which is completely counterintuitive. Whatever the truth may be, the fact is that human women now have fewer and shorter periods of ovulation per year.

"Ah," Romero replied in understanding, "didn't want another kid, eh?"

"Not unless the contribution is coming from a jockey botanist with a big bushy beard."

"Heh, and how is George handling Mindoir Laboratories?" Romero grabbed a cup off of the table.

"Rather well from what he's been telling me," Maya answered, "he and an old friend of his, Diane I think, have been helping each other cope with their sexual needs and apparently the lab has this underground forestry with real wildlife for the scientists to hunt, so he's been able to stay very level minded."

"Well, good for him," tracing his thumb around the edge of the glass cup, Romero noticed that there was still some leftover pig blood in it.

As she watched Romero bring the glass to his lips, Maya said, "So, I'm still horny as hell and now that I'm done gushing blood out of my cooch, would you please join me and Jade in a threesome later today? I need to get rutted _bad_."

**Author's Note**

**Sorry this chapter took longer than usual, but I couldn't help it, I hit multiple thresholds last chapter. This story had reached over a hundred faves, a hundred alerts, and a hundred reviews. I felt like I had reached a literary accomplishment by getting to the 10****th**** chapter.**

**So what did I do?**

**I went out and bought Dante's Inferno, Dragon Age: Origins, and XCOM and spent nearly a week not writing anything.**

…**Truly I am literary marvel.**

**So anyways, let's talk about the chapter.**

**More specifically, let's talk about humanity in this story.**

**Readers, I would very much like your opinion on what you think of human society and of the humans in this story.**

**But first, I want you guys to know something about these humans…**

**In this story, the humans are NOT paragons of virtue who are always in the right.**

**They are NOT renegade conquerors who have come to rid aliens from their own incompetency. **

**And most importantly, in this story, the humans are definitely NOT survivors who lived through the apocalyptic fires of turmoil and chaos, and emerged from that trial stronger and braver than ever.**

**No, in this story, humanity emerged from that fire as shadows of their own reflection, similar in appearance but too twisted in shape to be anything like they once were.**

**In this story, humanity's insanity is held back only by carnal pleasures and needs.**

**In this story, humanity has to consistently walk the line between an intellectual human and an animalistic beast.**

**It is this humanity that makes first contact with aliens.**

**It is this humanity that the aliens have to live with.**

**Now, do you like this humanity?**

**ONTO THE REVIEWS!**

**Not as much as the last one, but still above average… Hooray!**

**Bernard Karp: …Uh, I think you're confusing adrenaline with ecstasy?**

**Onsholo: Wheatley is the same Wheatley from Portal 2, but in this story the events of Portal 2 happened differently and ended up leading to the events that ended the Pandemic. Basically, this is AU Wheatley (Alternate Universe Wheatley).**

**Wanderer101: Very perceptive of you on the batarian's intentions, your right to an extent which you will discover in the next chapter or so.**

**Yanslana: Thank you, I think? I'm a bit conflicted here. On one hand, I've managed to grab your attention, but on the other, grossing people out is one of the fundamental aspects of the horror genre that I seemed to have failed at. You know what? I'll just call this a win and continue on.**

**Omake 1**

"Wait," Romero asked in a confused manner, "who's watching him now?"

"Cartoon marathon," she answered in a deadpanned tone. Raising her iTool to check the time, she said, "I'd say I have about another hour before he even notices I'm gone."

"What does he watch?"

"Teenage Infected Ninja Varren."

**Omake 2**

Maya raised an eyebrow, "And what about three days ago? Weren't you at all curious about all of those chemicals covering everything?"

Romero shrugged, "I was at first, but then my band's drummer explained to me how the Virus inside of all us will negate all of the chemicals effects. He then went on to explain how the Virus has changed us in so many ways."

Maya stared at Romero, "The drummer?"

Romero nodded, "Yeah, he has a degree in biology."

Maya continued to stare at Romero, "…The drummer knows biology?"

"Yeah, I was surprised the first time I learned about it too," Romero laughed at the concept, "a smart drummer, who would have thought."

**Omake 2.1**

The author would like to assure all of you that he has no intention of stereotyping drummers as idiots and would like to apologize to any smart drummers who may be offended.

**Don't forget to leave a comment or a review. And remember, I'll love you more if you make your review longer. Your contribution is like adrenaline to us writers and inspires us to write more.**


	11. Chapter 11

Left 4 Dead is owned by Valve

Mass Effect is owned by Bioware

First Infection

**Torfan**

**2171 C.E.**

Turr'l was no fool, he knew that his people, the batarians, were not the most well-loved species in the galaxy. His culture's penchant for slavery drew a lot of criticism from practically every other galactic civilization on the board. They said that it was immoral, barbaric, and that it infringes upon every sapient right known to the galaxy.

Funny how none of the inhabitants of these 'morally sound' civilizations ever questioned where they got their clothes… or their stuffed toys… or even where they get their food.

Funny how large corporations don't seem to care where or how their products are made, just so long as it meets supply and demand.

The galaxy can whine and moan all it wants about the 'evils of slavery,' doesn't change the fact that the batarian's slave rings are the ones keeping the Citadel races well stocked with their own low tier products.

…At least, not until the humans arrived.

The humans had been a major nuisance to the Hegemony since the very beginning of their galactic expansion. When the humans gained colonization rights to the Skyllian Verge, the batarians lost a huge amount of potential territory. It was only made worse when all of the slave trafficking situated in the Verge had to be entirely reorganized because its new inhabitants had an infuriating habit of colonizing systems that had served as pit stops for refueling.

And it only got worse when ambassadors of various races were granted a tour of the human colonies of Mindoir, and when the humans showed off the capabilities of their commons.

Manual labor.

Manual labor that was equivalent to slavery, except without all of the immoral tidbits that made people riot.

The Hegemony was losing corporate contracts to the humans every month.

Was it any surprise that the batarians retaliated?

**Mindoir**

**2170 C.E.**

Bones crunched between her teeth and blood dripped from her claws.

Maya was roosted on a tree branch in one of Mindoir's jungles, with the bloody carcass of a hawk hanged up to the trunk. As Maya feasted on her successful kill, she felt her bloodlust recede, and her intelligence be… regained? No, not regained. She had never lost her intelligence, her mind, when she ached for a kill. She only felt that her intellect was…less important when she got her cravings. But now with a kill marking her claws and a feast filling her stomach, she felt that her mind had become… firmer.

Maya smiled a pleasantly red smile as she looked out over the jungle from her heightened position on the tree branch.

Green was the most predominant color in the jungle, of course, but that didn't lessen the amount of reds, yellows, and blues that popped out from the flowers and fruits. Most of the flowers were in bloom now, thanks to the Director's chemicals that had spread out through the planet's atmosphere. There was also a lot of fungus growing everywhere too. A lot of the blue dust was still found on the planet, mostly on rocks and other inorganic materials that couldn't naturally absorb the chemicals.

Jumping down from the tree branch and landing on the jungle floor with nary a pain from her legs, Maya found herself in front of a small creek. She was startled when she heard a growl next to her.

Looking next to her, she was surprised to see a large crocodile sprinting toward her, no doubt looking for an easy meal.

Maya just silently watched as it got closer.

The crocodile quickly stopped and held still when it was ten paces from reaching its target. Maya could see the crocodile's nostrils flare open as it smelled the air around it. After a moment, the crocodile moved again, only toward the creek instead.

The crocodile wasn't going to waste its energy trying to kill a diseased animal, especially when there were plenty of fish in the stream.

After the animal disappeared into the watery depths of the creak, Maya had walked toward its bank. Crouching down, Maya raised her sharp hand and pulled off her sunglasses and bandana, letting her brunette hair fall past her chin.

Leaning forward, Maya looked at the creek's liquid reflection.

Maya was a mother, a successful business woman, and fifty years old.

The stream showed abyssal eyes belonging to a young woman covered in blood.

The reflection brought a hand to her youthful face and tilted her head to the side in thought, _"By Pre-Virus standards: my features make me look like I just got out of college."_ A smile, _"By Pre-Virus standards: I look like I just became a cannibal."_

Setting the thought aside, Maya started washing her face and hands, ridding them of red ink.

_KERCHUNK!_

Maya practically jumped out of her skin in fright when something crashed onto the ground next to her. Turning her head in fright, she saw a mess of metal shards scattered in the mud and rocks. Picking up the pieces, Maya discovered on closer examination that it was some kind of camera.

Looking up toward the trees, where the camera had most likely fallen out of, Maya saw that they were blowing rather harshly in the wind.

Except… it wasn't the wind.

Maya's eyes widened in horror as a spaceship of alien design came into view over the foliage.

**Mindoir Hive City One, the Collective's planet capital of Mindoir**

"This isn't a battle, this is target practice!"

Rukarr gritted his teeth in annoyance and looked over toward his battle-brother: Jagdon.

"Just keep shooting," Rukarr ordered as he shot another round into the horde of crazed humans.

The two krogans were leading a pack of vorcha down the large hallways of the hive city. The buildings in the city were very interconnected, it actually reminded Rukarr of the slums in Omega: where the downtrodden would literally build their shabby houses anywhere they could, even on top of other buildings and houses. These humans seemed to have taken that concept and expanded it into a jungle of concrete and steel.

Humans: the infected race that pushed back the might of a turian fleet. Many have said that the humans were this generation's version of the rachni, or krogan.

A shotgun blast ripped the head off of a human.

So far, Rukarr felt that those accusations weren't living up to their hype.

The Blood Pack, as well as other mercenary and pirate bands were being hired by the Batarian Hegemony to invade this planet. As Blood Pack mercenaries, they were getting paid a fortune to capture as many humans as possible in this invasion. Already they had over a hundred humans (mostly just the crazed ones) stocked up in their ships. Now they were being called back to their landing site to jump off the planet before the human's navy arrived.

"_These_ are the fearsome humans?" Jagdon asked skeptically as he finished off the remaining horde, "The so called: Plague of the Galaxy? These mindless aliens aren't even a challenge. Where are their soldiers?!"

Rukarr had to admit that he too was a bit disappointed at not finding a challenge in this battle. Most of the humans that they came across were either mindless or civilians. The human civilians did offer a small challenge though, they knew the city well and were very fast and agile, which made capturing them difficult. Some even tried attacking them, with mixed results.

"Me not complaining," a vorcha said in its grinding voice. It was grinning maddeningly and was gripping its weapon very lovingly, "so fun watching stinking animals explode!"

Jagdon turned to the vorcha and said, "Shut up, before I kill something annoying."

Rukarr rolled his eyes, "Let's just get off of this damn planet already."

"Yeah, before I die of boredom."

And with that, the disgruntled mercenaries walked through city halls toward their landing site.

Unaware of the shadows following them.

**Mindoir Laboratories**

"I can assure you colonel, that Mindoir Laboratories has not been discovered."

The Central chamber was currently vacant except for a few individuals: Wheatley, Chell, and an armored charger.

Wheatley was, of course, hanging from the center of the chamber with Chell standing next to him. In front of them stood Charles, the charger and head of security of Mindoir Laboratories. The armor that he wore was entirely white and his helmet, which was a rectangular round design with a glowing red optical unit in the center, covered his face completely. He was currently speaking to two military personal on the large holographic screens that hanged off of the chamber's walls.

"Are you sure?" the colonel, a boomer adorned with a number of medals on his uniform, asked. He was carrying a skeptical look, "Because these alien pirates have amassed most of their numbers into the city above you. Perhaps one of your test subjects was bugged and your security force failed to notice it?"

Chell crossed her arms.

"All of our test subjects are thoroughly screened for bugs before they even get near this facility," Charles defended, "perhaps these pirates are attacking the city simply because it is the capital of Mindoir?"

"That does seem more likely, as these pirates don't seem smart enough to find the lab." the spitter on the other screen said. He was the captain of the CSV Seoul, the cruiser in orbit around Mindoir. Currently the starship was on the other side of the planet and undergoing repairs from the battle with the pirate fleet. Every now and then they could see one of the ship's crew hurriedly pass by the screen in the background, no doubt they were working as fast as they can to get their ship back in order.

The colonel raised his eyebrow, "They were smart enough to get you to retreat."

A scowl adorned the spitter's face, "It was just bad timing, my ship's disrupter torpedoes were repurposed and used to spread the Advisor's chemicals over Mindoir. If the pirates had arrived when the Seoul was fully armed, we wouldn't be in this situation."

"But they didn't arrive then, instead the pirates arrived right when Mindoir was most vulnerable."

The chamber quieted at the colonel's words.

"Are you saying that there's more to this invasion than we previously thought," Wheatley quipped, "like someone else is behind this invasion? It can't be Aria right, because I recall that the Collective and Aria have a very well understood agreement."

"Well, there's one way to find out," the boomer smiled, "the city's civilians have been evacuated by our soldiers into the jungles, and so I have ordered all ground forces to cease their stealth and evasion tactics and to begin repelling the invading force. I have also ordered all of the city's storage rooms holding most of our commons to open."

**Mindoir Hive City One**

"RUN YOU IDIOTS! RUN!" Rukarr ordered his squad as he barreled through the commons, his shotgun clearing a bloody path.

"WE GONNA DIE! WE GONNA DIE!" a vorcha screamed unhelpfully as it ran behind Rukarr.

It had happened just a few minutes ago, a siren had started wailing throughout the city and every door and storage room was systematically opened. Massive numbers of commons flooded out of the rooms and set themselves between the squad and their landing site, slowing them down from their destination. If they didn't reach that site soon, the starships will leave without them and they would be stranded on a human planet.

Rukarr kicked open a door that accessed an alleyway. As the squad ran through the dirty back corner, Rukarr realized that Jagdon wasn't with them. Turning around, he found Jagdon back at the door, unloading his own shotgun at the incoming horde.

"COME ON! IS THAT ALL YOU GOT?! IS THIS BEST YOU CAN DO?!" Jagdon taunted the mindless aliens joyously as he blew them to bloody pieces.

"DAMNIT JAGDON! WE DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS!" Rukarr yelled furiously, "WE HAVE TO GET BACK TO OUR SHIP BEFORE WE'RE LEFT HERE!"

Hard to argue against that logic, Jagdon was about to start making his way toward the group when Rukarr saw a shadow land behind him.

It was a male human in a black uniform with a gasmask covering his head. The most unusual feature the human had was the long neck.

When Jagdon turned around to see what was behind him, the bottom half of the soldier's gasmask snapped open.

Rukarr looked on in horror as a green ball of acid splashed into Jagdon's face, completely covering himself and the ground around him with the sizzling green liquid.

Jagdon screamed a scream of pain as he furiously tried to wipe away the acid to no effect. This was when the horde of commons burst out of the door and besieged the screaming krogan. Because of the sheer amount of commons there were and the speed that they were going, the massive flesh of bodies literally slammed the acid covered krogan against the opposite wall before he was swallowed up into the horde's maw. The spitter soldier disappeared from view behind the wall of bodies.

Rukarr's squad of vorcha raised up their assault rifles and were about to fire upon the commons before he stopped them.

"No! Leave him!" Rukarr ordered, "He's already dead, and we just have to get to the end of this alley to get to our ship. We can make it."

The Blood Pack landing site was located in a small memorial park that was surrounded by tall buildings. None of the Blood Pack members really knew who the park was commemorating (or really cared), because one of their frigates had landed on the statue. The various krogan and vorcha had their minds set on other things though at the moment.

Like how they had been overrun.

Bodies were lain strewn about the park like a mass grave, while the living fought on. Krogan and vorcha shot every common that got close to them, while the human soldiers picked them off from high atop the buildings.

This was the scene that Rukarr had come upon.

A scene with no frigates in sight.

They didn't make it in time.

**Torfan**

**2171 C.E.**

"It's your fault that Mindoir was such a failure."

Turr'l raised his gaze from the reports that he was reading and set it on the batarian general in front of him. Placing the documents on his desk, Turr'l relaxed into his comfy chair and gave the general a pleasant smile.

"Is that so?"

With a loud _thump_, the general slammed both hands onto the desk and focused his four-eyed glare into Turr'l.

"The pirates and mercenaries were unorganized and suffered for it," the general seethed, "you were supposed to give them the best tactics and strategies on how to take care of the humans. But you didn't."

"Oh?"

"I looked over the strategies you gave them," the general continued, "those plans were flawed. You set up those pirates and mercs to die and it cost us."

Turr'l gave out a hearty laugh at the general's words, "Cost us? _Please_, with such high casualties at Mindoir, we only had to pay a _few_ of the pirates the exuberant amount of money we offered them. If anything, I saved us money."

"And what about the humans?" the general argued, "The cities on Mindoir were supposed to be burnt down to the ground and the humans our slaves."

Turr'l looked at the general with a disgusted look, "_Human slaves_?" the words rolled off of his tongue with distaste, "Ugh, the very idea is deplorable. Why, they would be tougher to crack than a krogan." Using his Omni-tool, Turr'l activated a hologram over his desk to show a video of a human huntress fighting against her captors, killing three. "Not to mention that there is their ravenous diet to consider, as well as the fact that every few months you would have to let them kill something to keep them useful." Turr'l shook his head, "No, no, no, a simple house pet is beneath them, they're too dangerous for it, they'd be much more useful for the plans that I have in store for them."

"And what plans are those?"

"Oh, I'm not too sure," another click of his Omni-tool and the hologram changed into a picture of a room filled to the brink with human commons, "but once our scientists discover something of interest from these mindless animals, I'll get back to you on that."

Turr'l peered closely at the hologram, "You know, the pirates actually brought back more captured humans than I expected. Perhaps I'll sell some to a few scientists in the Terminus systems," the hologram changed back into the video of the huntress, "or maybe to those battle coliseums in Omega and Tuchunka."

"So, this invasion of Mindoir," the general crossed his arms sternly, but seemed less angry than he was earlier, "it wasn't about weakening the humans, it was about strengthening the Hegemony."

"Mmm close, but no," Turr'l answered, "it was actually both."

Noting the general's confused expression, Turr'l asked, "Tell me general, why is the Hegemony losing corporate contracts to the humans?"

The general didn't say anything.

"Good publicity," Turr'l answered, "corporations look much better in the public eye when they don't use slaves to make their products. That's why they switch over to the humans. The …commons, as the humans call them, are a mindless subspecies that never had any free will to begin with. So honestly, who cares if they're being forced to toil in factories every day, it's not like they'll complain. _That_ is what makes them so much more appealing to the corporations."

"And how does this fit into attacking Mindoir?" the general asked.

Turr'l showed off a smirk, "As good a bonus as the capture of the humans was, they were _not _the main objective of the invasion. The pirates and mercenary bands were used only to serve as a distraction from the true objective, which was to send in a number of our Spec Ops soldiers to discover and retrieve any human secrets that they found on that planet."

"What did they find?"

"Oh, a number of things," Turr'l said. With a hand on his desk, Turr'l slid the documents that he had been previously reading toward the general. Picking up the documents, the general perused through their contents, his eyes widening in surprise and his mouth curving upward in a smirk.

"So how do we use these against the humans?"

Turr'l reached down behind his desk and opened a drawer. Sticking his hand in the drawer, Turr'l brought out a specific item. This particular item was one of the first discoveries that the Special Ops teams found on the planet and it will be the most useful tool against the humans, because it shows just how dangerous the humans are to everything around them. It will show how unsympathetic the humans' true nature really is, because the very existence of the item in his hand dictates just how much damage the humans have done to the galaxy.

"It's simple really…"

Turr'l raised the vial to eye-level, allowing both him and the general to see the blue chemical dust that was collected at the bottom.

"We make the galaxy hate the humans."

**Author's Note**

**I'm gonna be honest here, this chapter is definitely not my most favorite one (although I did enjoy writing the last part).**

**Recent News: I have recently returned to college, so the updates are going to be a bit slower than usual now. Sorry, but I do have to keep my grades up.**

**ON TO THE REVIEWS!**

**Onsholo: Thanks for the appreciation, and I admit that my heart did scream in glee a bit at your comparison.**

**Other Personalities: I'm looking forward to writing the Normandy.**

**Lay Down Hunter: Good, this story can't belong to the horror genre if I don't disturb my readers in some way.**

**aDarkOne: That's a very interesting viewpoint, seeing the humans as sympathetic villains in this story. …I like it.**

**Jackarall: I know what you're saying. I mean I love humanity too, but come on people, it's not a very good story if the humans immediately curb stomp everything in their path. And don't worry, just a couple more chapters before the intro ends. Also, canon characters won't be renamed, but their backstory and personality? Well, you'll see…**

**IhopeyouedieNOT: Don't worry, don't worry these chapters will come.**

**Question: I suppose I should have seen this coming. Alright, here are some answers on human society regarding taboo topics…**

** Multiple partners: some human cultures are alright with multiple lovers, while others are still monogamous. But when you're living in a world where it's literally f**k or go crazy, sex has basically become the equivalent of taking your 'weekly medicine.' Now, 'making love' on the other hand, is much different than simply 'rutting like animals' and is treated as something that should only be shared between lovers. What makes a 'lover' depends on the culture and on the individual.**

** Bestiality: Pig plus infected human equals dinner every time.**

** Pedophilia: It is illegal everywhere to do that to a special infected child. No one cares if it's done to a common though, just so long it isn't put up on display where anyone can see it.**

** Incest: …Yeah, I've got nothing for this. Look, it's not going to be in the story, so we'll just say it doesn't happen and leave it at that.**

** Maya was not joking about the threesome. When a person is asking someone for their… 'weekly medicine,' it is considered polite in most cultures to also invite their lover(s), if they have any, to join them.**

**MECHANICALCHEESE: …My God… it's… it's beautiful. The sheer size and detail you put into that review was absolutely beautiful. I am unworthy to its very presence, but I will respond to it as best as I can. **

** You want to know when Shepard is going to come around and if Shepard is Maya's son. The answer: Shepard is already 'around' and is not Maya's child. In this story Shepard isn't going to have any of the backgrounds that Bioware provided, but an entirely original one. Here's a hint: Shepard is currently over one hundred forty years old.**

** And yes, Shepard's gender and infection will remain a mystery until the end of this arc.**

** The suppressor will not exist (at least not immediately (maybe)), I'm sorry, but the Virus is much too… efficient in dealing with foreign substances entering the body for a suppressor to work. There's also another reason why there won't be a suppressor, a hidden one that I'm saving to reveal much later in the story because it correlates with why humanity never developed a cure for the Virus. It's also for the story's benefit too, because if I take away the mental problems of the infection then I won't have a story about an infected humanity, but one about a super-powered humanity. Don't worry though, human-alien cooperation is going to be realized, but it will also be very tough and awkward for both sides.**

** The Normandy crew isn't going to be canon. Oh, but don't worry, practically all of the original crewmates and team members are going to be there, but there will also be more of them, especially the aliens. I've got quite a few ideas on who will be on the Normandy, its missions, and its main directive. Most of the original missions will be there (with their own twists), but there will also be new ones.**

** Putting biotics into technology: I plan on doing that eventually, I mean how else am I supposed to incorporate half-life and portal technology? Gravity gun, anybody? **

** Ideas for the commons: I love them. And don't worry, the commons will eventually get that technology. Although keep in mind that I've only mostly been showing non-militarized commons so far, as the militarized ones already have some technology on them.**

** Again, I just want to thank you for the review, I loved your opinion of the humans and all of ideas that your sharing. I look forward to more of your reviews.**

**Omake**

"So how do we use these against the humans?"

"It's simple really…"

Turr'l raised the vial to eye-level, allowing both him and the general to see the blue chemical dust that was collected at the bottom.

"We kill the Batman."

"…That doesn't even make sense."

"How about a magic trick?"

**Don't forget to leave a comment or a review. And remember I'll love you more if you make your reviews longer. Your contribution is like adrenaline to us writers and inspires us to write more.**


	12. Chapter 12

Left 4 Dead is owned by Valve

Mass Effect is owned by Bioware

First Infection

**Junthor, specified location: unknown**

**2173 C.E.**

The Armstrong Nebula is a nebula located in the human-owned Skyllian Verge and is named after the famous Pre-Virus human: Neil Armstrong, who was the first human to set foot on their singular moon.

Located inside this nebula is the Gagarin system, which is named after the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first human to orbit around their planet.

In orbit around the Gagarin star is the planet Junthor, which has the distinction of being the only alien-owned planet in human space.

For the past eight years the quarians have called this planet home.

And, according to STG agent Jonum Durhe, they have been under the radar for far too long.

Rolling a data chip between his digits, Jonum Durhe sat methodically as various salarian spy agents shuffled around him to perform their duties. Their base of operations was hidden in the ruins of an ancient colony of an unknown alien race that was long extinct. The ruins were barren and gave off an unwelcome feeling to anyone who entered, as if their very presence marred its tragic greatness.

This made it the perfect place to set up a spy ring to uncover what activities the quarians have been up to ever since they took refuge in human space.

While his agents busied themselves over their camera feeds and listened to hacked comm channels, Jonum slapped in the data chip into his holo computer and started downloading all of the data that they had learned of the quarians into the data chip.

Now that the quarians' survival no longer depended on scavenging everything they could find to keep their ships running, the quarians have now devoted most of their time, resources, and skill to one goal.

The reclamation of their homeworld from the geth.

The quarians have always been regarded as the most technological adept of all species, but unfortunately for them, for the past three centuries that potential has largely been underdeveloped due to a lack of resources.

But now the quarians have a planet and a trade agreement with the humans, who have plenty of resources to spare.

As the humans supply the quarians with raw materials, the quarians have built laboratories and factories that have been churning out mechanical constructions of warfare like there was no tomorrow.

Tapping a few buttons on his computer, Jonum looked over a few of the mechanical monstrosities that the quarians have built.

The Raytheon Exoskeleton Suit, the Landmaster tank, and the Behemoth Battlesuit were the three most noteworthy pieces of mechanical warfare that the quarians have been implementing. They were specifically designed to counterweight the quarians' pitiful ground-combat resilience, as a result of their weak immune-system, by supporting their troops with a large number of mechanized vehicles.

But would it be enough against the geth?

When the download was complete, and after double-checking that all of the data was in the chip, Jonum ejected the chip from the computer and placed it into his pocket. His top priority now was to get it to the Council as safely and quickly as possible.

"Alright everyone," Jonum called out, gaining everyone's attention, "drop what you're doing and start the scrubbing process. And be thorough about it too, I don't want anyone to find out that we were ever here."

**Omega, hanger B12**

**2174 C.E.**

For humans, there are many advantages to not being a member of the Citadel government. Like not having to follow any of their laws. If the law that limited the use of genetic modifications was forced upon the humans when the Pandemic just ended, chargers would still have a single atrophied arm, boomers would still be as round as a beach ball, and tanks would still be… well…

Not to mention, that there's that law that practically makes artificial intelligences illegal.

So yes, the Collective dodged quite a few bullets when they decided not to join the Citadel government. Of course, not being a part of the Citadel government has had its own disadvantages.

The Collective's economy was small.

_Pitifully_ small compared to the economies of the Citadel races, who not only had the advantage of relying on each other, but also the fact that they have had centuries or even millennium of experience.

For without Citadel membership, trade with anyone else had become severely limiting to the humans. This has made the Collective's economic growth very slow and hard going. Sure there were the quarians who traded some advanced technology to them every now and then, but they were only one race. And yes, there were all of those corporations that were using human commons to make their products, but that didn't mean that actual trade was going on. The Citadel wasn't buying anything major from the humans, and they weren't selling them anything either.

The humans have a saying though for these kinds of situations, "when a door closes, God opens a window."

That window led to Omega, which was the asteroid built-in space station that was a haven for criminals, terrorist, and all kinds of malcontents.

Grizz had to admit, these humans had made working for Aria very beneficial to his credit account.

The turian looked over the cargo manifest on the holopad in his talons as the hanger deck around him buzzed with activity. The large cargo ship that was docked in the hangar was a human ship. While the humans unloaded their cargo from off of their ship and onto the hanger deck, more of Aria's underlings took that cargo and loaded it onto their hovering transports.

"Cannabis, cocaine, heroin, tobacco, methamphetamine, temazepam…" Grizz read off the manifest. They were human drugs, illegal in most parts of Citadel space as soon as they had hit the market. The drugs were very popular too; Grizz himself was pretty fond of cannabis, also known as marijuana, and liked to smoke it a bit after a long day.

"I've got to say," taking a moment to stop reading the manifest and talk to the human captain, Grizz watched as tons and tons of containers filled with all kinds of drugs were carried off the ship, "you humans sure know how to sell in quantities."

The human captain was a boomer, so his body was slightly bloated in size in comparison to most humans. Behind him were three armored commons, who stood slouched in their full body armor, along with their arms hanging down heavily with the serrated blades attached to them. They honestly made Grizz and his two turian and asari bodyguards nervous. Shouldn't they be going on a rampage with all of the non-infected surrounding them? Every now and then one of them would start growling whenever someone got too close to them, but they never made a move.

"We've got drug fields that go on for miles on our planets," said the human captain with a deep voice," it's nearly impossible for us humans to overdose because of the Virus, not to mention the fact that it takes nearly a fistful of any of that stuff just to get us even a bit buzzed. So yeah, we make them by the bulk."

Grizz gave out a noncommittal grunt at that. Some aliens just get all of the benefits.

A common started making guttural moaning sounds for no reason.

"…_Well, maybe not all of the benefits,"_ thought Grizz as he went back to reading the manifest.

"Red sand?" Grizz raised a turian eyebrow as he read off the last item on the manifest. Giving the human captain in front of him a curious glance, he asked, "What's that?"

The human captain turned around toward his ship and yelled, "BORIS!"

A human with a massive arm, a charger, who was carrying a large circular container over his shoulder walked over to them, "Da?"

"Show him the red sand."

With a loud metallic _clank_, the charger set down the metal container and undid the lid. A look into the container revealed to Grizz how red sand got its name, as the container was filled with loads of red tiny particles.

"It's a stimulant with biotic-enhancing properties," the captain informed him.

"I thought humans didn't get biotics?" said Grizz, "How did you guys create something like this?"

"With science, of course," a feminine voice answered. From behind the captain appeared a female spitter, wearing short pants and an open shirt. She was an Administration agent who worked in the trading department. Grizz noticed that his asari bodyguard blushed at the female human's exposed mammary glands. That was something that one had to get used to when working with humans, they tended to wear their clothes in a very loose manner. He just hoped that the humans he had to deal with never stopped wearing pants.

"All of the cargo has been unloaded," the female spitter said. She crossed her arms and said, "now it's time for Aria to hold up her end of the bargain."

Activating his Omni-tool, Grizz sent a message to Aria. A moment later, he received his own.

"It's done," Grizz said, "the credits have been sent to your government. I don't know why you want Citadel money though, I doubt they like you enough to let you buy anything from them."

"Who said we were going to buy anything from them?" she asked with a smile, "They never gave us the time of day to trade, so why should we trust them?"

**Citadel, Council's Audience Chambers**

**2175 C.E.**

"THE HUMANS CAN NO LONGER BE TRUSTED!"

"THEY'RE A THREAT TO THE GALAXY!"

"MORE AND MORE PLANETS ARE LOST TO THE HUMANS EVERY YEAR AND WE DO NOTHING!"

Pinching her blue fingers at the bridge of her nose, Tevos, the asari councilor, sighed in irritation as the salarian councilor tried to restore order to this… whatever this is. It started out as a petition from a large group of politicians for the Council to take action against the humans over some recently acquired information. But before the Council even had a chance at going over the information, the chamber had erupted into chaos. The petitioners, the spectators watching from the terraces, and every other damn politician who thought their opinions were worthwhile were arguing against each other.

"All of you be quiet!" Valern, the new salarian councilor, commanded. Unfortunately, his voice went unheard as it was lost to the sea of noise in front of them.

"THE HUMANS ARE DANGEROUS!"

"AND YOU WANT TO GO TO WAR WITH THEM!?

From the corner of her eye, Tevos could see the turian councilor make a gesture that indicated that he was rolling his eyes.

"THEY ARE DESTROYING PLANETS!"

"THERE ARE MORE PEACEFUL WAYS!"

"NOT WITH THE HUMANS-"

_BANG! BANG!_

Tevos, Valern, and the rest of the audience all involuntarily flinched as the sound of the gunshots reverberated through the air. Turning her head to the right, Tevos saw that the one who fired the gun was a turian with white tattoos covering his face that was only marred by the three long claw marks that stretched from his left eye to his chin.

"Well, now that we have that in order," said Sparatus, the new turian councilor, as he holstered his pistol, "Will someone mind telling us what in the Spirits' names do you people want from us!?"

Across from them on the extended platform, a greenish salarian wearing a robe similar to the one his councilor wore emerged from the crowd of petitioners and gave the councilors a short bow.

"Doedra Orin, speaker for the genetic preservation party," he introduced himself, "I, and the group of politicians behind me, wish to petition for the Council to take action against the humans for the crimes that they have committed."

"_The genetic preservation party?"_ Tevos wondered in silence,_ "What have the humans done to anger a party that mostly concerns itself with cataloging the ecology of planets?"_

"And what crimes are these?" asked Valern methodically.

"They have been destroying the ecosystems of a number of planets."

"…_That'll do it."_

"I find that hard to believe," Valern stated skeptically, "the humans have repeatedly stated that they need the wildlife just to stay sane. In what ways could they have possibly destroyed these environments?"

Doedra shook his head disappointedly and pressed a few buttons on his Omni-tool, whereupon a hologram appeared in the center of the chamber. The hologram projected a screen of images that listed the profiles of a number of animals. They ranged across all types of wildlife from lizards to birds and mammals to amphibians.

"These," said Doedra as he showcased the animals, "are the native fauna of Mindoir. Cataloged centuries ago when the planet was first discovered, long before any human set foot on it.

Crossing his arms and giving the Council a pointed stare, he said, "We have reason to believe that most of them are now extinct."

"That is a very serious accusation," Tevos said, "do you have any evidence to back up this claim?"

"We do," Doedra said as he reached into his robe and brought out a vial containing some kind of blue dust in it.

"This," he said as he held up the vial for all to see, "is a chemical specifically designed to increase plant reproduction. It was found all over the human planet of Mindoir when it was invaded by pirates. Most likely the pirates gathered up all of the chemicals they could find so as to sell it on the black market, where it circulated until it finally ended up on my party's doorstep. Probably sent to us by someone who is just as concerned about the environment as we are."

"I fail to see how increasing plant reproduction makes the humans guilty of burning down forests," Sparatus stated rather bluntly, "If anything you're helping their case."

A click of a button on his Omni-tool and Doedra changed the hologram of animals into a projection of a planet. It was a very bright green planet, with forests and jungles covering most of the terrain.

"This is the planet Mindoir, before the humans colonized it," said Doedra, "along with the chemicals being mailed to us there were also data files that contained detailed orbital recordings of Mindoir's environment. Like say, after nearly twenty years of human colonization."

The holographic image of the planet altered into its current form. Most of the northern hemisphere was still made up of jungles and forests with the added inclusion of bright shiny lights that indicated the cities that the humans have built. The southern hemisphere on the other hand was now mostly brown and yellow, its forests and jungles having been destroyed and replaced by barren mountains and sandy deserts.

The chamber was filled with the surprised murmurs of the audience as they looked on at the damage done to the planet.

"According to the data files, this massive deforestation was caused by the humans bringing over animals from their homeworld to Mindoir to feed their ravenous diet," ranted Doedra, "not to mention that, along with the humans' commons, they are no doubt responsible for the extinction of most of the world's native species."

He gestured toward the vial in his hand, "This isn't a solution. It wasn't designed to restore the planet's environment to what it once was, it was designed to stabilize the situation so that the humans can keep killing and nothing more. The humans are destroying the environments of planets and then replacing it with their own."

"And how many planets have already been permanently scarred by the humans' presence? How many species have become extinct by the humans' hand?" Doedra continued to rant as the crowd's agreeing murmurs slowly increased to an uproar, "We demand that the Council take action against these atrocities!"

Holding her hands up in a calming gesture in an attempt to placate the crowd, Tevos spoke, "We thank you for bringing this… news to us, but I am afraid that there is not much that the Council can legally do in this situation. The humans were granted complete ownership of the Skyllian Verge and all of the planets in it by us. As such, they are allowed to use these planets however they wish, even against the behest of our opinions. And unfortunately, because the humans never joined the Citadel government, they are not bound by our laws, so we cannot regulate them without overstepping our boundaries."

"However, that doesn't mean that the Council will not take action against this," Sparatus forcefully added before the audience screamed in outrage, "there are plenty of peaceful ways that we can take to stop the human's destruction."

"We will bring this up with the leaders of the Collective," Valern finished, "we're sure that once they are made aware of the atrocities that have been committed, they will take action."

"WHAT IF THEY DON'T!?" someone from the audience yelled out, to which murmurs of agreement followed.

Sparatus crossed his arms sternly, "We'll see what happens."

**Author's Note**

**DUN DUN DUNNN!**

**And now everyone knows how that blue chemical dust was used to make the galaxy hate the humans.**

**By making them look like Al Gore's worst nightmare.**

**What exactly are these mechanical monstrosities that the quarians have been building and why have I included them into the story? Well, in the games, most of the vehicles seen were of human make, but in my story the humans don't really use ground vehicles that much, especially for combat. So I needed a substitute.**

**I picked the quarians.**

**Also, as most can see by the dates in this chapter, I'm speeding the intro up so we can get to the Normandy already. Just eight more years guys.**

**Now onto the reviews…**

**Wanderer101: "Because one's not enough, and two is too low. It's THREE DOG!"**

**aDarkOne: Yeah, it was pretty easy making the galaxy hate the humans, especially when someone pulls out the environment card. Oh, and you want to know what happened to the asari that was the Shadow Broker's spy? Well, that's easy. She's at [CLASSIFIED] where she's being [CLASSIFIED]. I hope that cleared things up for you.**

**Bernard Karp: Nice, but I'm not sure what you are referencing in the last part of your comment. I would love to know.**

**Question: Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down there. Jade is NOT Maya's daughter, they are just good friends who have a bit of an age difference. And yes, humans do care who they get it on with, they don't care **_**that much**_**. It's a bit hard to explain, and it's a topic that I'm saving for when the aliens start asking these kinds of questions on the Normandy. Don't worry though, the humans haven't crossed into creeper territory.**

**MECHANICALCHEESE: Nope, the lab wasn't cracked. The batarians literally found the stuff laying everywhere on the ground. It's kind of explained in the Maya section of chapter eleven.**

**Yes, how **_**dare**_** those humans indeed. Especially, considering just how many gardens have already been defiled.**

**Glad to make you grin. I'm actually now trying to make the commons emulate the zombies from the movie World War Z. Most notably the point where the krogan was assaulted.**

**Actually, no. Shepard's age doesn't make him/her that young. After all, the Pandemic was practically one hundred sixty years ago, which means that Shepard was only born a short while after it ended. As for how long humans live now, no one really knows considering that no one has died of old age in the past one hundred sixty years. Scientists estimate it to be between four hundred to six hundred years of age.**

**Metastability? Definitely not. I mean the asari and krogan don't gain that and they live a thousand years and beyond. Which is way longer than what even the humans are guessing what their lifespan is going to be. Although it is worth noting that humans are living longer than what they were naturally meant to, and as such, some psychological aspects (good or bad, who knows) are bound to crop up.**

**I love your reviews, keep up the good work.**

**Omake 1**

The humans have a saying though for these kinds of situations, "when a door closes, God opens a window."

That window led to Omega, which was the asteroid built-in space station that was a haven for criminals, terrorist, and all kinds of malcontents.

…Some god, eh? Apparently, He likes to act as a drug dealer every now and then.

**Omake 2**

"This," he said as he held up the vial for all to see, "is a chemical specifically designed to increase plant reproduction. It was found all over the human planet of Mindoir when it was invaded by pirates. Most likely the pirates gathered up all of the chemicals they could find so as to sell it on the black market, where it circulated until it finally ended up on my party's doorstep. Probably sent to us by someone who is just as concerned about the environment as we are."

**Meanwhile, at… God, I don't know where. Somewhere that isn't in the Council Chamber.**

Turr'l was pissing on a flower.

**Omake 3**

**Mordalfus Grea:** **What?! No Mordin Joke! He's supposed to be ex-STG in ME2, so he could easily bypass Batarian security and deliver his key phrase and be gone before they can react**.

**Sheesh, fine.**

"We're going to make the galaxy hate the humans."

**Tuchunka**

Mordin was concentrating deeply as he steadily poured the chemicals of one vial into the chemicals of another vial. The work in modifying the Genophage was extremely difficult but equally essential for the continued peace of the galaxy.

As Mordin poured the chemicals, he reflected on just how important this moment was.

He then stopped.

He stopped pouring the chemicals when he realized where he needed to be.

Mordin dramatically slammed the vials onto the ground, the glass shattering, and the chemicals exploding into colorful clouds. Months of work (minutes for Mordin) were wasted.

Grabbing onto the handles of his jetpack (because obviously Mordin would have one), Mordin blasted off into the ceiling of the laboratory. In the process of smashing holes through the many roofs that the building strangely had, one of Mordins two horns broke off. Legend says that if one were ever find this horn, the individual would be granted the knowledge on how to make Electronic Arts into a respectable video game company.

But that is a story for another time.

Finally breaking through all of the roofs, Mordin rocketed into the Tuchunka sky until he broke through the atmosphere and into space.

What's that? People can't survive in space? Well, fuck you! It's my story, so I can do whatever I want.

After flying through space like a boss, Mordin came upon a mass relay. The giant ball of energy in the relay blasted Mordin with some kind of space lightning, whereupon Mordin achieved speeds nearly unimaginable to all but two people in the universe. One was Mordin, the other person was the Most Interesting Man Alive, who Mordin high-fived while speeding through the galaxy.

It wasn't long before Torfan was in his sights. As Mordin the Great bulleted toward the batarian base, the atmosphere burning up around him, he yelled out his signature line.

"FFFFFAAAAASSSSSCCCCCCIIIIIIINNNNNNNAAAAAAATTTTTTT IIIIIIINNNNNNGGGGGGGG!"

Mordin collided head first into the batarian base.

Torfan then, for reasons unknown, exploded.

**Don't forget to leave a comment or a review. And remember I'll love you more if you make your reviews longer. Your contribution is like adrenaline to us writers and inspires us to write more.**


	13. Chapter 13

Left 4 Dead and Portal is owned by Valve

Mass Effect is owned by Bioware

First Infection

**Citadel, Embassy Bar**

**2175 C.E.**

"I can't believe this!"

Doedra Orin slammed his hand down on the table as he fumed at the Council's actions (or inaction as the case might be).

"How would the Council be 'overstepping their boundaries' on matters such as this?" Doedra asked the two politicians across the table from him, an elcor and a volus. Both were ambassadors of their respectful races and both were good friends of Doedra's.

"The destruction of garden worlds goes beyond mere laws," Doedra ranted, "It's a universal agreement that the humans broke; even the Terminus systems would back up the Citadel in dealing with the humans."

"_Tsss_ Maybe not," replied Din Korlack, the volus ambassador, "I have heard rumors that the humans have built an alliance with Aria, the notorious Queen of Omega. _Tsss_ If that is true, then it could be very possible that Aria has coerced, or blackmailed more likely, the various _Tsss_ crime lords and corrupt leaders that make up the Terminus systems into backing off from the humans."

Din shuffled in his seat, "I also wouldn't be surprised if she had quite a few Citadel politicians in her pocket. _Tsss_ This may be why the Council is moving so cautiously."

"In a hopeful manner: or maybe the Council doesn't want to start a war with the humans because peace is always a better option," proposed Calyn, the elcor ambassador, "concluding tone: after all, if the Council cried war over diplomacy every time an atrocity was revealed, where would we be now?"

"_Tsss_ Most likely deep within a war against the Terminus systems."

Doedra looked back-and-forth between the two ambassadors, before he relaxed his posture and replied, "Yeah, a war isn't something I want to start… I guess I did jump the gun a bit."

"As the humans say."

Twisting around in his seat, Doedra looked behind him to see Jath'Amon, the bataraian ambassador, sitting sophisticatedly at his own table and enjoying a well-cooked steak that most-likely originated from his home planet.

"Excuse me?" asked Doedra.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to eavesdrop," he said as he methodically sliced apart his meal with his silver utensils, "it's just that our tables are right next to each other and your conversation was very… enflamed, that it was quite impossible for me to _not_ listen in to."

Doedra rubbed the back-side of his head bashfully, as it was he that kept his voice raised through most of the conversation.

"But to answer your question, I was referring to the last part of your sentence," he said politely, "as 'jumping the gun' is a human phrase. The humans do like their metaphors and exaggerations after all. It most likely came from one of those pre-Virus human movies that have become so popular."

"_tsss _Is there a point to this matter?" Din questioned rather rudely at the batarian.

The batarian ambassador shrugged nonchalantly, "Not really, I just find it intriguing that we find the pre-Virus humans so fascinating, and the current humans so… well, let's be frank, monstrous. Of course, considering what we've seen, I seriously doubt that the pre-Virus humans would ever be accused of destroying the ecosystems of entire planets."

Doedra and the ambassadors stayed quiet.

"In fact, now that I think of it," he pondered a loudly. Taking a bite out of his steak, he chewed methodically before he swallowed and resumed his thought, "there are a lot of differences between the two: ethics, lifestyle, …sanity. Really, the only similarity that they hold is that they both share some physical features. If one were to compare the pre-Virus humans to the current humans, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if people confused them for two entirely different species."

He stared at Doedra, "In fact, considering just how fast it took for them to spread across the Skyllian Verge, they really do seem more like walking diseases than humans, kind of like zombies."

Doedra stared back, "…Yeah, …zombies…"

**The Citadel, Council's Audience Chamber**

**2175 C.E.**

"_Well… here we are again."_

Standing at the edge of the podium in her white translucent robe, Anita Goyle stood with a very tense posture. Subconsciously flattening the wrinkles on her robe, gently of course, she didn't want to rip a hole with her claws, Anita nervously glanced toward the terraces.

Angry and suspicious faces stared back at her.

The terraces were crowded with seething politicians who seemed to think that they had every right to be angry with Anita and humanity in general. Of course, that's not what had Anita worried, after all, angry politicians are a staple of politics and one does not go into politics without being looked upon with disgust at least once in their career. No, what had Anita worried were the various soldiers that were spread out in those crowded terraces.

Technically though, C-Sec operatives acted more in the manner of law enforcement upon the Citadel than actual soldiers, but that fact didn't really placate Anita's concern.

The C-Sec operatives were decked out in their blue armor and were carrying assault rifles in their hands and talons. They also had smoke grenades and stun guns attached to their waists for nonlethal measures, which is their real purpose for their presence in the Council's Audience Chamber. Anita had been informed that the C-Sec operatives were only there to keep the crowd of politicians from getting too rowdy.

Which didn't really placate Anita's fears, as it showcased just how volatile this situation was that law enforcement was needed.

A low growl sounded behind her.

Glancing behind her, both of her hunter guards glared at the crowded terraces. A fact that was only hidden by the dark gas masks they wore over their hooded faces. They also wore light armor and were carrying assault rifles in their claws and had a variety of grenades, some were fragmentation and some were filled with strange liquids, strapped to their waists.

When the male hunter noticed Anita's glance, he ceased his instinctive and protective growling, to which Anita was thankful.

With a sigh, Anita focused her attention on the three Council members standing across from her, who were as stoic and neutral as ever.

Over a week ago the Collective had received a message from the Citadel Council proclaiming that there were transgressions that needed explaining and answers for. Also inside that message were statements that if the Collective did not attend this summit, then the Citadel Council would be forced to "blockade specified Mass Relays," "place a tax on products that were made by the human subspecies known as: commons," and, most ominous of them all, "the examination of planets and the eviction of any factors that damage said planet's 'Garden World' status," which is all justified for the "continued environmental and political stability of the galaxy."

Needless to say that the Collective was a bit concerned about this message.

Bowing deeply in greeting, Anita addressed the Councilors, "Councilors, the Collective has received your message and has sent me to this meeting. What is it that you wish to discuss?"

For a moment, there was silence, as the three Councilors exchanged unreadable glances between each other, before they focused their attention on the ambassador in front of them.

Tevos gave Anita a smile, "Anita, it is wonderful to see you on the Citadel again after nearly eighteen years," the smile turned into a frown, "but the message clearly stated that we had requested the leaders of the Collective to be in attendance here at this summit, not an ambassador."

Anita nodded, "Yes, well, as you do, the Collective has its own set of rules and policies. One of them being that all three of our leaders should never be in the same place at the same time in foreign territory, for safety reasons." She expressed an apologetic shrug of the shoulders, "Sorry, but our leaders can't be here on the Citadel for this meeting."

The crowd in the terraces started murmuring in dissatisfaction, their volume steadily increasing in noise before immediately becoming silent as a C-Sec operative made a show of activating his stun gun.

"_That_ is exactly one of the reasons why this meeting had been called in the first place," Sparatus said, "your government secrecy and isolationist stance, along with a number of other things, have put both of our societies on opposite ends of the spectrum."

"The galaxy, at large, has become very mistrustful of the Collective's activities," Tevos added, "so much so, that we have been called to take action against your government."

"We had hoped that the presence of your leaders at this summit would help placate some of the accusations made against your people," said Valern, "but if your leaders refuse to even attend this summit, then there is not much that can be achieved today."

Tevos tapped the console panel in front of her and said, "So, until your leaders make an appearance, this summit will be postponed indefinitely."

With that, the Councilors started their march toward the exit of the chamber while the crowded terraces became filled up with the un-hushed tones of the politicians. Many of them complained about how uneventful this meeting was, while a small few wondered a loudly how long it will take the human leaders to finally show their faces to the galaxy.

"Fine."

The voice was loud, it wasn't a yell, it was just loud. Either way, it silenced the crowd and ceased the Councilors' march all the same as they all turned their heads toward the source of the voice.

Anita's left arm glowed with silver palettes as her iTool activated.

"Our leaders can't _physically_ be here, but…"

**Earth, the human homeworld**

**Administrative Tower**

The desk was made from mahogany. It was also finely crafted and had beautiful carvings etched into its sides, increasing its aesthetic beauty. It fit perfectly with the lavish room that it was situated in.

The desk was not important.

The vid-screen on the desk that showed a video of the Council's Audience Chamber on the Citadel from the perspective of one of Anita's guards was important.

Anita's iTool was activated on the vid-screen.

At once, two dark hands gripped the edges of the desk and pushed against it, lifting the body they were attached to upward from a sitting position.

**The Citadel, Council's Audience Chamber**

"-There are other ways of getting an audience."

Behind Anita, her huntress bodyguard had been carrying a bag on her back. When Anita activated her iTool, the huntress set down the bag and opened it. Reaching in the bag, the huntress pulled out a mechanical device.

The device was comparable to a bulging Frisbee, as it was circular in shape and as wide as the length of a forearm, but as flat as a dinner plate, except for in the middle which bulged outwardly. At the top of the device, where the bulge reached its height, was an opening of the device. Inside this opening were three large camera projectors that were surrounded by over a dozen much smaller and more numerous camera projectors.

**Arcturus Station, military headquarters of the Collective**

"_Please stand still as the cameras scan your image,_" the synthesized voice ranged out through the room.

The man stood stock still as the floating cameras rotated around him, scanning his figure, the colorful lines projecting from the cameras danced across his body.

Nearly forgetting something important, the man brought his hand down into his back pocket to grab an item.

"_PLEASE stand still as the cameras scan your image,_" the synthesized voice reminded him annoyingly, "_you can move around more freely once the scanning is complete._"

The man grumbled some choice words under his breath.

**The Citadel, Council's Audience Chamber**

The huntress placed the mechanical device in front of Anita, near the edge of the podium. The huntress then took her place behind Anita next to the male hunter.

Stepping forward, Anita pressed a few holographic buttons on her iTool and then waved her glowing silvery arm over the mechanical device. To which in response, the camera projectors in the device lit up and began to twist and rotate around as the device accumulated to the settings.

**Earth**

**?**

She was staring at a wall.

Which wasn't true at all.

It just looks like she was staring at a wall.

"_Connection confirmed._"

When in reality, she was actually staring at a group of aliens billions of light years away.

**The Citadel, Council's Audience Chamber**

After a moment of the mechanical device adjusting its settings, three individuals were holographed into existence on top of the podium.

Anita stepped forward, "Councilors, I would like to introduce all of you to the leaders of the Collective."

Extending her clawed hand forward, she expressed the focus onto the figure in the middle of the trio. With the thin arms and the protruding spine, the man was obviously a jockey. He wore gray khaki pants and a white shirt which contrasted nicely with the bright red tie he wore around his neck and his darker skin tone. He was also cleanly shaved and bald.

"Administrator Louis…"

The man on the right of the Administrator was a gray bearded smoker dressed in a green high-ranking military outfit, complete with a green beret. Reaching behind him, the man took out a cigarette from his back pocket and lit it between his lips.

"…Grand Admiral William Overbeck…"

The most unusual of the trio was the woman on the far left. A brunette with bright yellow highlights in her hair, she wore a white lab coat that stretched down to her knees. What was most unusual about her was how normal she looked, as she didn't have any type of physical features of the infection on her. She looked like a Pre-Virus human.

"…and Director-"

"Caroline," the woman interrupted her before focusing on the Council, "and before you ask, no, I do not actually look like this. This is just a hologram I use to protect my identity."

Valern, being a salarian he was the quickest to recover from the surprise of the Collective leaders' arrival, said, "Well, now that you are all here, we can begin this summit proper."

The Administer nodded, "Yes, if I remember correctly from your message, you were all quite peeved at us for some reason."

The Grand Admiral crossed his arms sternly and said, "Threatening to take our planets away from us does tend to leave the impression that they are more than just 'peeved' at us."

"We apologize for any aggression that may have been interpreted in the message," Tevos apologized, "but we had deemed it necessary to gain your attention on just how serious this matter is." Tevos activated her Omni-tool and a hologram of a vial filled with some type of blue chemical dust appeared in the center of the chamber.

Which drew the attention of the Director immediately.

"Where did you get that?" she asked curiously, with no sense of urgency in her voice.

"You recognize it?" Valern asked.

"I made it."

"Then you know what it does," Tevos stated.

"I would be a very poor scientist if I didn't know what it did," the Director's face was neutral, "I am not a poor scientist."

"Then you should also know why it is the reason that the galaxy views the humans with such hate ever since it was found on Mindoir."

The Director did not blink.

The Administrator rubbed the back of neck, "Yeesh, that's a little harsh don't you think? I mean, I know us humans have our faults, but one of the most hated in the galaxy?"

Valern focused on him, "Your species permanently altered the environment of a planet and most likely caused the extinction of a number of species."

As one, both the Administrator and the Grand Admiral turned toward the Director, who, in a radical display of emotion, rolled her eyes.

"As fun as it is to cause the mass extinction of animals," the Director did not sound sarcastic, "there wouldn't be much benefits for science if all of that genetic material was lost forever. So, as a rule, we store all of the DNA of the planet's native flora and fauna inside our laboratories. If you want, we can transfer some of the genetic material to you and you can have fun cloning mindless animals. Let's just hope that none of the laboratories on Mindoir were destroyed during that terrible and violent pirate attack."

She then gave the Council a genuine smile, "By the way, thanks for all those relief supplies after that attack," the Director's face turned into a look of realization, "Oh wait, that's right. There _weren't_ any, how sad."

A short awkward silence permeated the air, before Tevos replied that transferring the DNA to Citadel laboratories for cloning would go a long way in restoring humanity's stature in the eyes of the galaxy.

"Well, now that we've got that settled," the Administrator said with a big smile on his face, "is there anything else that needs to be said?"

"There are still your trading partners to discuss," said Tevos.

"And what trading partners are these?" asked the Administrator.

"The quarians and various factions of the Terminus systems," Valern said, "one is a rouge species who you are arming to the teeth and the others are criminal organizations that you are trading dangerous drugs to."

The Administrator crossed his arms, "We only supply the quarians with raw materials, what they do with it is their own business, not ours. The same can be said for the Terminus systems, it's not our problem."

"Look at it from our point of view," Tevos urged, "the drugs that you are supplying to these organizations are being illegally sold in Citadel space and, as a result, are damaging our livelihood. Because of this, many have considered this a form of terrorism, a type of terrorism that you and your entire government is responsible for."

"If the hippies can't handle the drugs they shouldn't be buying them. Don't go blaming us for the faults of your own people," the Grand Admiral interjected, "we're not the ones selling them the stuff."

"But you are the ones profiting from it," Valern added.

"Well, maybe if you didn't bar us from trading with you, we wouldn't have to," the Administrator argued.

"The type of trade agreements that you have proposed to us in the past can only be achieved by Citadel members," Tevos reasoned, "if you simply join the Citadel government, these kinds of difficulties can be swept away."

"And there it is!" the Grand Admiral proclaimed, "the _real_ reason you have such a problem with us. It's all because we're not a part of this 'League of Nations' you have going on here."

"We _can't_ join the Citadel," the Director argued, "your laws would make our lives difficult."

Tevos turned to the Director, "We can find a way around these difficulties. If you simply tell us exactly what laws are troubling you, we can, within reason, make this process much easier."

"You and I have two vastly different opinions on what 'within reason' falls into," the Director replied venomously.

The Administrator put his hands up in a calming gesture, "Alright everyone, let's just calm down before we start a war. I'm sure there is a peaceful resolution that we can find here."

The Grand Admiral scoffed lightly as he looked up at the crowd of politicians in the terraces, "I'm pretty sure that the majority disagrees with that."

"Then perhaps we should both be working together to fix that."

As one, everyone looked toward the stoic Sparatus, who, until just now, had been silent throughout the meeting.

"Sparatus," Tevos said, "I assume that you have an idea?"

He nodded slowly, "It's the strangest thing," he pondered loudly, "none of us here want a war, and yet, with every word we utter, we take a step closer to it. We just can't seem to get along," he stared at the three human leaders across from him, "and honestly? Why should we? I look at them, and all I see are old enemies," he turned to his two colleagues beside him," but honestly, what do I know? I'm just a prejudiced old war veteran that barely survived that war. I really don't know anything about them, I never sat down and talked to them, and I never worked with them on anything. If there's anyone whose opinion does matter, it's the people who have."

"Unfortunately, as far as I know, the people whose opinion we desperately need do not exist…yet."

"Sparatus, what is your idea?" Tevos asked.

Sparatus crossed his arms and said, "If there's anything I learned from my time of service, it's that nothing builds comradeship like being stuck together in a starship that's surrounded by the soul crushing empty voids of space."

The Director let out a small smile, "I like how this turian thinks."

**Author's Note**

**Reader: "It has been an entire month since you last updated. What do you have to say for yourself Whateverdudezb?"**

**Whateverdudezb: "…Grand Theft Auto V."**

**Reader: "…You are forgiven."**

**That and schoolwork, getting good grades in college is much more important than writing a fanfic story.**

…**At least, that's what I tell myself whenever I start staring longingly at my computer.**

**ONTO THE REVIEWS!**

**OtherPersonalities: No, there is not going to be a war… yet. Maybe, who knows? You'll have to keep reading to find out.**

**aDarkOne: The universe isn't made up of reasonably intelligent people. But you are correct, the humans are definitely not being portrayed in the greatest of lights in this galaxy.**

**Mechconstrictor: Maybe I'll release some codex entries on the different types of infection later on, but I suggest you search for the Left 4 Dead wiki. Personally, I'm just amazed that I was able to keep the attention of a reader who wasn't familiar with both franchises.**

**Bernard Karp: Thank you, and you should probably know that you were addressed in the author's note of chapter 10.**

**Twigon Halolover: Sorry, no Glados in this chapter. Just someone going by the name Caroline, whoever that is.**

**Guest 9/23/13: There is some significance to the title of this story. But is your epiphany correct? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Either way, props to you for drawing attention to the title.**

**Omake 1**

"Caroline," the woman interrupted her before focusing on the Council, "and before you ask, no, I do not actually look like this. This is just a hologram I use to protect my identity."

"Ah, that explains your size," said the Administrator, "after all, you're much larger in person."

She didn't even look at him, "Fat jokes won't work on me."

**Omake 2**

The crowd in the terraces started murmuring in dissatisfaction, their volume steadily increasing in noise before immediately becoming silent as a C-Sec operative made a show of activating his stun gun.

"ENEMIES EVERYWHERE!"

"DAMN IT, GARRUS! PUT DOWN THE DAMN STUN GUN!"

**Don't forget to leave a comment or a review. And remember I'll love you more if you make your reviews longer. Your contribution is like adrenaline to us writers and inspires us to write more.**


End file.
